Wrinkles and Wrinkle Treatments
How do you eliminate wrinkles and look 10 years younger ? As you get older, certain inevitable problems happen. One of them is wrinkles, especially on or around your face - around your eyes, on your cheeks, your forehead, your neck. It can be rather depressing when you look in the mirror and see what the ravages of time can do. Take heart!
Although you can't stop the passage of time, you can reduce the signs of aging. You can look years younger. Here's a description of what happens and some solutions ...
What Causes Wrinkles ?
As a person gets older, their skin undergoes significant changes:
- The cells divide more slowly, and the inner layer of skin (the dermis) starts to thin.
- Fat cells beneath the dermis begin to atrophy (diminish).
- The underlying network of elastin and collagen fibers, which provides scaffolding for the surface layers, loosens and unravels.
- Skin loses its elasticity. When pressed, it no longer springs back to its initial position but instead sags and forms furrows.
- The sweat and oil-secreting glands atrophy, depriving the skin of their protective water-lipid emulsions. The skin's ability to retain moisture then diminishes and it becomes dry and scaly.
- Constant facial expressions also form characteristic lines.
- Gravity exacerbates the situation, contributing to the formation of jowls and drooping eyelids. (Eyebrows, surprisingly, move up as a person ages, possibly because of forehead wrinkles.)
- In addition, the ability of the skin to repair itself diminishes with age, so wounds are slower to heal.
Also, many other factors can cause your skin to wrinkle and wear out, including :
1. Sunlight damages collagen fibers (the major structural protein in the skin) and causes accumulation of abnormal elastin (the protein that causes tissue to stretch). Enzymes called metalloproteinases are produced and can repair the damage for the most part. Repetition of this rebuilding process over and over again causes wrinkles.
2. UV radiation from the sun also promotes oxidation, the release of damaging and unstable oxygen-free radicals. Oxidation contributes to wrinkling, possibly by activating the metalloproteinases that degrade connective tissue.
3. Cigarette smoke (Smoking) :
- causes thickening and fragmentation of elastin, which are the elastic fibers that are long and smooth in healthy skin.
- diminishes the level of estrogen in women to cause dryness and disintegration of skin tissues.
- reduces the amount of oxygen supplied to the skin by reducing circulation. -leads to a decrease in the formation of collagen, the skin's main structural component, and may reduce the water content of the skin.
- compromises the skin's ability to fend off free radicals, the highly reactive substances that are present in tobacco smoke that cause cell damage.
4. Air pollution - Ozone, a common air pollutant, may be a particular problem for the skin. One study reported that it might deplete the amount of vitamin E in the skin (an important anti oxidant).
5. Rapid weight loss can also cause wrinkles by reducing the volume of fat cells that cushion the face. This not only makes a person look gaunt, but can cause the skin to sag.
6. Heredity - you may have inherited some of your skin characteristics from your parents.
The skin only needs to be poorly moisturised for it to dry out and become lined. In other words, the appearance of wrinkles and loss of firmness.
Wrinkles and fine lines are the most easily visible signs resulting from the obstacle course the skin has to face. Helped along by the sagging of the tissues, these wrinkles and lines result in the formation of a type of canvas covered with cracks of varying depths.
As time goes by, they deepen, reaching the dermis, which is the skin's supporting mattress. When the dermis loses its elasticity, it becomes slack and deeper wrinkles begin to form. These wrinkles are more than 0.05 millimetres in depth, therefore they are the longest and widest.
Now through revolutionary nanotechnology, there are actually remarkable skin care systems that harnesses the cleansing power to gently cleanse damaged skin while rejuvenating and restablishing healthful skin tone and complexion with essential Vitamins and anti-oxidants to deliver the ultimate in skin care.
Here is the normal progress of wrinkles by age group :
Age 20-25 - Vertical wrinkles on the forehead and those that appear between the eyebrows can sometimes be already just visible, but fine lines at the external edge of the eyes are hardly noticeable yet.
25-35 - Wrinkles begin to deepen in the epidermis. They are less than 0.5 microns (0.0005 millimetres) in depth. They are caused by the slowing down of cellular renewal and by the superficial drying out of the skin.
35-50 - Little by little, the skin loses its cutaneous substance. Deeper wrinkles and laughter lines reach the dermis and are more than 0.5 microns in depth. Crow's feet, fine lines around the lips, the lines between eyebrows and furrows alongside the nose are beginning to deepen. The skin loses its elasticity, the facial contours become less well defined.
50 and over - With the onset of menopause hormonal secretions come to an end and this leads to an acceleration of the ageing process. With age, the skin's surface modifies: intermediary lines, which start out being closely packed, are replaced by furrows which become deeper.
The older you get, the more wrinkles you'll get, however, you can minimize the damage by taking very good care of your skin …
Wrinkle Treatments
There are some promising treatments for aging skin. Some new topical lotions or wrinkle creams, like Revitol or Avotone, contain natural ingredients that can help reduce this problem. For example:
Argireline:
Argireline is a newly developed, safer alternative to Botox ™. Unlike Botox ™, Argireline is not derived from a poison, but from amino acids that occur naturally. You don't have to get it from a physician because there's no need for it to be injected and it's not potentially dangerous in the way that Botox ™ is. Argireline works by relaxing facial tension because it reduces excessive release of the neurotransmitters, called catecholamines, that make your facial muscles tense up. When your muscles aren't tense, they don't contribute to wrinkles. Argireline also works to slow down the degeneration of collagen and elastin that normally occurs with aging, and that allows skin to lose its shape. It's as simple as that: reduce muscle tension, avoid poison and maintain skin shape.
Dermox™ SRC:
This specially tested serum helps control wrinkles, increase synthesis of collagen and restore the surface of the skin.
DMAE (Dimethylaminoethanol Bitartrate):
Studies indicate that the antioxidant DMAE can function as a cell membrane stabilizing agent, reinforcing the skin's foundation of collagen and elastin, and that DMAE actually makes cells live longer and helps cells avoid dehydrating. By no coincidence, levels of DMAE in our cells drop drastically as we age. DMAE may also aid in healing scars, including acne scars. It helps flush excess lipofuscin from skin cells, which works to reduce aging spots. DMAE is necessary for the brain to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Therefore, DMAE may aid in improving memory and preventing memory loss, and in keeping nerve cells healthy. Elsewhere in the body, acetylcholine helps maintain skin tone and firmness.
What Can You do to Minimize Wrinkles ?
Although everyone tends to get wrinkles as they age, there are a number of things you can do to reduce the wrinkles you already have and hopefully minimize wrinkles in the future. The most important of these include:
- Avoid the sun and/or use sunscreen
- Don't smoke
- Use a premium topical anti-wrinkle cream
- Moisturize daily
- Drink plenty of water
- Exercise
- Eat plenty of fruits & vegetables.
By following the above 7 items regularly, a person will be taking important steps to maintaining a youthful appearance and reducing the onset of wrinkles. See our Anti aging skin care page for more skin care information ...
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