Saturday, February 21, 2009

Holding Back the Age of Your Skin

By Wendy Jackson

People's preoccupation with anti-aging skin car products that claim to make you look younger, is not surprising when most of us can expect to live longer and have fuller more active lives. This group of products generally work by enabling the synthesis of collagen, which is the main protein of connective tissue in animals and the most abundant protein in mammals. Collagen is related to other anti-ageing substances in the body called anti-oxidants.

Probably the best known of these anti-oxidants is vitamin C although no-one really knows just how much we should have each day. Vitamin C formulated skin care treatments suffer with a particular problem of oxidizing on contact with the air which causes a problem for users and manufacturers.

Manufacturers are trying alternative skin care treatments to vitamin C that do not have this oxidization problem or cost as much to produce. However, these anti-aging skin care treatments are not as effective vitamin C based products, although vitamin E and lipoic acid are also anti-oxidants and have similar effects.

The body uses vitamin E as an anti-oxidant and is also used to increase the natural defense we have against disease, including many types of cancer, it is a fat soluble vitamin in people's blood. Another, lipoic acid is in every cell of our body and is used to generate energy for us to live but also helps reduce and reverse the skin's aging process.

The use of plants has not been overlooked either with many types able to provide essences called phytochemicals which have proved successful in anti-aging skin care products. Another benefit, like that of alpha-lipoic acid, is their ability to reduce the prevalence of certain cancers like prostate, colon and breast cancer.

Other vitamins from the B group, are also used in anti-ageing skin care like vitamins B5, B6 and B12 for example. The use of anti-ageing skin care products is a huge scientific field to research and has far greater potential than just producing goods that reduce the visible signs of age.

Although current regimes are effective, there are still many challenges to finding better and more efficient ways to combat the effects of time. Hopefully, these challenges will get resolved in due course and better and cheaper anti-ageing skin care products will be produced.

However, man-made skin care regimes should be used only as a supplement. So, drinking plenty of water, getting a good night's sleep, exercising regularly, maintaining healthy eating habits and keeping stress at bay are essential means of delaying the ageing process. - 15438

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