Twins and Skin Agin and Appearance
Aging of the skin has always been a fascinating area of study, and now that good skin is totally “in”, and has been a hallmark of the ultimate mark of beauty for quite a few years now, it’s being studied more and and more not only in terms of how to treat common and marring skin conditions such as acne and rosacea, but also in terms of how to turn back the clock on aging skin and help prevent it from happening in the first place.
I thought the study that was performed on twins and how their skin aged differently, even though they were identical and from the same DNA, was an interesting case in point about how we can actually control the rate at which our skin ages and what it looks like, much more than we probably thought we could. After all, it’s not just good genes that get you skin that doesn’t age as quickly or ages more gracefully, but it in large part has to do with ……drum roll please……YOUR LIFESTYLE.
Yes, this has been hammered home here at Acnemag for years, but it’s a point nonetheless that shouldn’t be taken lightly if you take the appearance of your skin seriously, and you want to keep it looking great for as long as you possibly can. The studies involved several sets of identical twins. The most interesting one was a set of female twins that were bicoastal. One lives in Ohio, the other in Florida, and the differences in their skin’s appearance is quite remarkable.
The one that lives in Florida actually had more sun exposure over the years than her twin, which right there, puts her in a higher risk of aging skin to a larger degree and more photodamage, which creates sunspots and other telltale signs of aging on the skin. Not only that, the Florida twin has been a smoker for several years.
Smoking accelerates aging of the skin because it is a toxin, it cuts off oxygen to the skin, and therefore not only is a grey pallor eventually visible on smoker’s skin, but also their collagen production suffers because of a chain reaction of events related to the inhalation of the toxin over and over, and their cells go rigid much quicker, which means that wrinkles appear much more easily than when collagen is present, and makes the skin more flexible and smoother.
Another interesting point made by the study was that people, once past the age of forty, who have more body fat, tend to look younger longer because their fat fills out the wrinkles in their face, making it appear more supple, while more lean body types tended to look older due to the lack of facial fat. However, when younger than forty or so, the opposite apparently holds true, and those that are leaner actually look younger than their biological age. Food for thought!
