What Causes Skin Aging?

Aging is not something that happens to you suddenly after a specific number of years has passed: it is a continuous process that affects both body and mind, the result of a combination of internal and external factors. Skin aging is no exception. As you get older, the protein fibers (collagen and elastin) in your dermis change.

They lose water as a consequence of a process called polymerization, and the result is that much of their flexibility goes. This is one reason for the skin wrinkles so characteristic of aging skin: another is that the subcutaneous (under-skin) layer of fatty tissue, which acts as a cushion for your delicate internal organs, loses some of its fat. As it disappears, the skin’s supporting structure weakens. The skin itself begins to sag, and settles into folds and creases.

Another factor that contributes to the formation of wrinkles is an increased loss of moisture from your skin. Children have proportionately more water in their body tissues than adults do anyway, which is one reason why their skin tends to look firmer.

Age slows down the activity of the sebaceous and sweat glands whose function is to supply the skin with moisturizing oils and water; elderly people’s skin becomes increasingly dry as a consequence. The sebaceous glands slow down too, which also affects your hair. It tends to become drier and more brittle.

With age, blood flow to the skin is reduced. The epidermis becomes thinner, and the blood capillaries near the skin’s surface become more fragile. There is a decrease in the number of functioning melanocytes, the pigment-producing cells in the skin, leading to changes in skin color and the growth of ‘white’ (actually colorless) hair.

Strangely, some melanocytes increase in size, producing brown ‘age spots’ on the skin. All these changes happen anyway, but it is now known that the effects of the aging process can be accelerated by external conditions, like over-exposure to ultra-violet radiation. This puts the skin’s delicate tissues, and its inbuilt protective systems, under more stress than they are designed to cope with.

Sunburn may have one short-term effect. Epidermal cells are damaged; blisters develop if deeper layers of the skin are affected. When large numbers of skin cells are destroyed, the production of new ones is speeded up. So many are made that they crowd one another to the surface, forcing the burned ones to peel off.

Melanin production is speeded up, too, and it is the extra pigment produced by the melanocytes under stress that gives the skin its tan. The tan, therefore, is one of your skin’s natural responses to injury by the sun rather than a symbol of a healthy, leisured lifestyle.

Although fair-skinned people are more obviously at risk from the harmful effects of ultra-violet rays (especially if, as many do, they expose themselves to fierce sunlight for a couple of holiday weeks a year) even those people whose naturally darker skins are better able to protect themselves from damage still experience the drying (and aging) effects of prolonged exposure.

Supplementing the skin’s natural moisturizer – the sebum that coats the skin and hair, helping to keep it supple and forming a protective barrier to prevent excess moisture-loss from the body’s tissues -with lotions or creams containing screening agents helps to minimize these problems.

You can slow down the effects of aging on your skin (by replacing lost moisture, or by exercise and massage which, by toning the skin’s underlying muscles, help to maintain its firmness), but you cannot stop them. Neither can you unwrinkled skin, which has begun to lose its resilience, except, in some cases, by surgery.