Skin Basics
The importance of keeping your skin healthy can't be overemphasized. It's the body's first defense against disease and infection, and it protects your internal organs from injuries.
It is, in fact, the largest organ in the body. It regulates body temperature and prevents excess fluid loss, and it also helps your body remove excess water and salt.
Most women strive to keep their skin looking youthful. The good news is that there are a number of simple ways to achieve good results.
To understand how to keep your skin healthy and young looking, you should first understand a little about your skin.
Skin is composed of three layers:
The epidermis (the outermost layer), the dermis (the middle layer), and the hypodermis (the deepest layer).
The Epidermis
The epidermis has four layers:
1. Stratum corneum.
Dead, dense protein cells known as keratin makes up the stratum corneum or outer layer of the epidermis - the skin layer that can be seen and felt.
2. Granular layer.
This layer moves the dead keratin cells to the surface of the epidermis.
3. Squamous cell layer.
This layer produces keratin for the stratum corneum and also transports water. Blisters originate in the squamous cell layer.
4. Basal cell layer.
The lowest layer of the epidermis, the basal cell layer is where squamous cells are produced and where the cells that produce melanin, or skin pigment, reside.
Malignant melanoma and basal cell carcinomas (skin cancers) afflict the cells in the epidermis' basal layer.
The Dermis
The dermis is the middle layer of skin. It is a diverse combination of blood vessels, hair follicles, and sebaceous or oil glands. The proteins collagen and elastin are found in the dermis.
They provide support and elasticity to the skin. The sun's rays eventually break down these proteins. With age, the skin begins to wrinkle and sag.
The Hypodermis
The hypodermis is a layer of fatty tissue that provides nourishment to the dermis and upper layers of skin.
It also conserves body heat and cushions internal organs against trauma. Blood vessels, nerves, sweat glands, and deeper hair follicles are found in the hypodermis.
The Elements
Facial skin typically looks its best during a woman's 20s. The process of producing healthy new skin cells and removing or shedding old cells takes about 28 days.
As you age, your skin becomes thinner and often drier. Thinning skin is a result of a breakdown of collagen fibres. As it ages, skin loses elasticity, especially if it has been exposed to excessive sunlight, and becomes more fragile.
It dries out because the skin's structure weakens and it doesn't retain moisture as well as younger skin.
However, there are a number of dietary and lifestyle changes that you can make to help keep your skin healthy and young looking.
Because exposure to the sun influences how well your skin ages, protecting the skin from the sun is the single most important practice in skin care.
Continuous exposure to the sun will wrinkle, dry out, and age the skin, leaving it coarse and thick. Uneven pigmentation - from freckles to brown spots - is another side effect of frequent sunning.
The most serious consequence of sun exposure is skin cancer. Some statistics show that half of all reported cases of cancer are skin cancer.
Skin cancer can take up to 20 years to develop; children who experience as few as two to three sunburns are believed to have an increased risk of developing skin cancer later in life.
Dry Skin
Dry skin also may be a problem for you and your skin's health. With menopause, declining estrogen levels may affect your skin - most often making it drier, but sometimes your skin will become oilier even if you never had oily skin as a younger person.
Health problems common to older women also may affect the skin. Blood pressure medications and diuretics may cause dryness.
When the skin becomes dry it needs water, not oil, to help rejuvenate it. Aides for dry skin typically are found in three preparations: lotions, creams, and ointments.
Lotions are least effective at replacing lost moisture in very dry skin. But they evaporate quickly, making them the most convenient to use, and possibly helpful for normal and oily skin.
Creams, sucg as FaceRenew, are heavier than lotions and are therefore more effective at sealing in moisture for normal to dry skin.
Ointments, like Vaseline, are thick and are best for preventing moisture from escaping from the skin, but you may find that they are inconvenient to use regularly.
Healthcare professionals advise women with very dry skin against using soap and also alcohol-based astringents (toners), which typically dry out the skin.
Skin Cancer
There are three different types of skin cancer you should beware of:
Basal cell carcinoma, which appears as a small, pearly bump on the head, neck or hands, or less commonly as flat growths on the trunk region.
These lesions don't spread quickly and they rarely spread to other parts of the body, but they can extend deeply into the layers of the skin, causing significant local damage.
Aging Skin
More than 120 researchers from all over the world met in Cleveland to discuss recent scientific progress on the skin's aging process.
The Second International Symposium on Skin Science and Technology, was held last month in Cleveland, Ohio.
This forum provided an opportunity for the 120 researchers in attendance a chance to share their knowledge on the skin's aging process. Some of their most recent advances are explained below.
Preventing Skin from Aging
Knowledge of the skin's aging process is important because any change in our skin has a direct influence on our health. Burns, cuts or sores on older skin heal very slowly or, sometimes, not at all.
During the aging process the skin develops wrinkles, loses moisture and elasticity, and it is more difficult for older skin to repair itself.
Skin pathologies are caused both by "external" factors, mostly ultra-violet rays, and "internal" factors that are the result of the aging process, a process that begins when we are only twenty.
Both internal and external factors affect the appearance of the skin.
Today's scientists seek to understand the skin's aging mechanisms in order to prevent the aging process itself.
Innovation can only be achieved through thorough knowledge of the skin's physiological and biological functions.
By 2050, 21% of the world's population will be over 60. Remember, with FaceRenew you can face the future beautifully.
The percentage of the world's population aged 60 years or over was only 8 % in 1950 and only 10 % in 2000.
Aging skin can cause health problems.
"Understanding the skin's aging process will allow us to find ways of helping an aging population stay healthier", stated Arnold Caplan of Case Western Reserve University.
For the last six years, Mr. Caplan and a team of researchers have studied the ways in which the aging process causes changes in the skin's biological make-up and its physiology.
Reconstructed Skin Helps To Understand Aging
The first symposium was held two years ago in Lyon, France. The main topics discussed at the symposium included the different types of cells that make up the skin and the biotech applications of reconstructed skin.
Since then, scientists have developed models of reconstructed skin that duplicate all the cells of the epidermis and the derma.
These models successfully duplicate all of the skin's major functions: a protective barrier that contains the keratocytes of the epidermis, pigmentation with melanocytes and immunological functions provided by Langerhans cells.
Reconstructed skin is highly useful in studying the long-and short-term effects of ultra-violet rays. The team studies the damage caused by these rays and they have demonstrated that certain "sunburned" cells appear as a result.
They also study the area of the derma that is most affected by ultra-violet rays. "Repeated exposure to ultra-violet rays damages the skin in ways that cannot be completely reversed" pointed out a noted researcher.
John Voorhees, of Michigan University's Dermatology Department, added :"Each exposure to ultra-violet rays causes a micro-sore that will never entirely heal. Over time, these micro-scars cause photo-aging."
Ever increasing knowledge of the skin's biological functions will someday lead to cosmetic or pharmaceutical solutions to the problems of skin aging.
Thank you for your trust.
Jack Caballero
President & Founder
