Good and bad news for women’s skin

Modern medical science has bad news for women. According to a German study, women’s skin ages faster than men’s. The study was carried out using a new laser-based technique to measure damage from sun exposure and aging.

The findings of the study have been published in Optics Letters, a journal of the Optical Society of America. The findings are based on a new technique in which pulses of laser light are used to look at the deeper layers of the skin and measure its aging.

The process of aging of the skin is associated with the degeneration of collagens and elastins leading to wrinkles and loss of suppleness. Collagens and elastins are groups of proteins found in the dermis layer of the skin. Dermis is present under the uppermost layer of the skin called epidermis. Strands of collagens and elastins form mesh architecture thus providing strength to the skin.

The process of degeneration of the proteins “appeared to be sex-dependant with women’s skin losing collagen at faster rates than men’s,” according to the researchers from Germany’s Freidrich Schiller University in Jena and the Fraunhofer Institute of Biomedical Technology in St. Ingbert.

The co-author of the Optic Letters paper, dermatologist Dr Jahannes Koehler informs that skin of a healthy 35-year old person in some areas of his body can appear like that of a 25-year old and in some other areas like someone who is 50.

In your youth your body keeps up with a consistent supply of collagens. The production of the proteins decreases with age making the skin becoming flaccid.

The German researchers have been credited with the non-invasive skin testing technique, which could pave the way to checking anti-aging cosmetic products and investigating skin diseases that affect the skin proteins.

In this context I would like to share that yoga is known to restore blood supply to the connective tissue of an aging skin. Thus on practising yoga your skin is able to regain its suppleness and strength. Blemishes and other surface marks on the skin are among the first ones to disappear, as found in number of individuals who have been practising for at least six months. Skin is one of the last organs of your body to show the good effects of yoga though.

The technique used by the German researchers could well be used to verify the effects of yoga on your skin.

Yoga may come to the rescue of women after all.

Add comment October 10th, 2006 Written By: lalitgambhir