According to a team of dermatology experts, “Wrinkles now have a greater social impact because people live longer.”
A person may look a decade or two older than his or her age due to an inadequate program to inhibit the chief causes of skin damage. An effective skin protection and rejuvenation program needs to be multi-factorial and synergistic to modulate the various age-related pathways.
All of the following factors can damage skin and cause premature skin aging:
1.Stress-induced sleep loss or insomnia can promote premature aging of the skin.
2.An under-active thyroid can result in reduced hormone levels that cause dry, flaky skin.
3.Excess sun exposure can result in photo-aging of the skin and skin cancer.
4.Very low consumption of essential fatty acids (such as fish oil, or flaxseed oil) can dry the skin.
5.An antioxidant-impoverished diet can result in oxidative, free-radical skin damage, and premature aging.
6.A phytonutrient-poor diet—one that includes too few plant foods—can accelerate free radical damage.
7.An unbalanced diet high in processed foods can promote skin cell damage.
8.Breakdown of the skin scaffolding—initiated even by frowning or laughing—can cause wrinkles.
9.Dryness can promote fine lines, weaken skin cells—and even cause lipids in the skin’s fatty layer to crystallize, resulting in dull, dry and flaking skin.
10.Compromised stem cells inhibit the replacement of damaged skin.
11.Stress, both short term and chronic, can cause skin cells to appear tired.
12.Free radicals and cosmic irradiation cause damage to the skin cell structure, resulting in lines and wrinkles.
13.Inflammation can cause puffiness, blemishes, and pigmented lesions.
14.Elevated glucose levels can cause glycation—the process by which sugars attach themselves to the amino acids in collagen—which reduces the regenerative ability of collagen fibers, in turn promoting wrinkles, sagging and “creping.”
15.Gravity and other mechanisms result in a tendency for skin to take on a sagging appearance.
16.Aging is associated with a slowing down in collagen renewal, causing damaged and wrinkled skin.
17.Toxins and environmental pollutants may prematurely age skin.
18.Clogged pores can harbor bacterial infections and cause inflammation, redness, blemishes, and scaly skin.
19.Compromised shedding of old skin cells in the epidermis can cause a rough or dull appearance.
20.
Topically applied nutrients may—without a product-based ingredient delivery system—sit on the skin surface, overly saturating the wrong layers, causing inflammation, limiting any nutrient effect, and adding to the clogging of pores.