Understanding: Skin Aging

Timeless Glow: Understand Skin Aging and what we can do about it

Our skin is an active organ much like the rest of our body! And with that, the cells and appearance naturally age as we go through life. Many of our patients come into the clinic with the goal of wanting to be proactive around the health of their skin.

We discuss what you need to know, and what we can control based on the research that is out there.

What causes skin to age?

Our skin naturally ages with time and exposure to things in our environment that cause damage to the cells. To understand better, we typically divide these factors into external/environmental causes and internal cause (things that change or go on within our bodies).

Internal factors of skin aging

While we can’t halt our biological clock, there are things we can can do to set our body up for success in terms of cellular/biological aging.

Cellular Causes

Many of the internal causes of cell aging are normal biological processes our body goes through. These include; creating free-radicals in chemical reactions, our telomeres shortening in our DNA as a result of age, and DNA damage as a result of cellular replication (which is required for wound damage and to replace cells that have run their life course!).

Hormonal causes

For women who undergo menopause and perimenopause, a change in hormones can impact skin health and quality, leading to dryer skin, a reduction in elasticity, wrinkles and in some cases atrophy (the skin becomes thinner and less healthy).

What can we do about it?

If we had the magic pill to slow down cellular aging - everyone would be taking it! For now, we do know that engaging in healthy lifestyle lifelong is the best thing we can do. Our naturopathic doctors like to think about our lifestyle habits as 5 distinct pillars of health that all play a role in our overall well-being. We have broken down different ways our lifestyle habits contribute to skin health through these five pillars.

EAT - diet and our relationship with food

Eating a healthy diet, filled with foods that contain antioxidant nutrients (fruits and vegetables) helps benefit our overall oxidative load (reducing those free radicals from the inside!). Protein is in an important nutrient for a variety of mechanisms in the body (including keeping us full and helping us build muscle!) but can also help with wound repair and skin repair.

MOVE - how we move our bodies

Exercise benefits so much of our overall health, including our skin! Blood is the provider of oxygen and nutrients to cells, and exercise helps us move blood around to all our tissues like our heart, brain, muscles and skin!

Research has even found that aerobic activity (cardio) can produce an immune compound that benefits our skin health. Components of our sweat may even provide a benefit to the health of our skin. Read more in our previous blog.

THINK - our mental well-being

Stress and our mental well-being make intersect with skin health in a few different ways. We know that psychosocial stress activates our HPA or stress axis. This causes the activation of our sympathetic nervous system, impacts our immune response and our microbiome. We know that stress worsens other skin concerns (like acne, chronic itching, hives, alopecia, eczema and psoriasis). We also know that when we are stressed we engage in less of our healthy lifestyle habits that help skin health and overall health.

REST - the role recovery and sleep plays

Is beauty sleep a real thing when it comes to our skin health? While many of our report that our skin may look better after a week of restful sleep, there may be a scientific basis to this. Read more about the mechanism behind how sleep impacts our skin health in our previous blog.

CONNECT - our relationship with ourselves and others

While this may feel unrelated, research in the elderly has shown that social isolation can impact immune markers and inflammatory markers (IL-6 and CRP) that worsen skin health. Social isolation also predisposes all of us to an increased risk of being sedentary, and is often associated with smoking and high blood pressure. For the elderly, this increases their risk of mortality and morbidity (become sick). A healthy and connected social life is an important part of anyones health plan, no matter what their goals are.

Environmental factors to skin aging

Our interactions with our environment impact our skin health to a large degree. These environmental factors include sun exposure, smoke exposure, pollution exposure and our lifestyle habits and choices. The environmental factors account for 80-90% of our skin aging that occurs! The good news is, we have control in being able to prevent much of this. And our number one things we can control is our sun exposure.

Sun Exposure

Photoaging is the process that occurs when UV radiation from the sun over time causes damage to our skin. This can increase our risk for skin cancer, but also increase wrinkles, pigmentation changes and makes our skin texture rougher. This causes our skin to look older and be older at a cell level than we chronologically are!

What can we do about it?

We can either attempt to prevent sun exposure, through physical and chemical means (sunscreen!); attenuate the damage with biological protection (some plants have been researched to help minimize damage); or reverse the existing symptoms through repair and regeneration (retinoids are our most researched topical!). 

Start with prevention

Prevention seems to be the easiest and most effective treatment, and is required for any one of any age or stage of skin health.

Minimizing sun exposure (especially on days with a high UV index, or during the peak hours of sunlight in summer) by staying in the shade or covering up with long sleeve shirts, hats, and pants is an easy way to prevent excess sun exposure and burns.

In cases where clothes or shade can’t be used applying Broad spectrum SPF sunscreen (which helps protect against both UV A&B!) every day, is our best way to slow the photoaging process. 

We recommend all patients use some form of sunscreen daily throughout the entire year to prevent sun exposure and decrease cancer risk, but also because many are concerned about the future of their skin health and look of their skin. Research indicates that most of us should be using at least SPF 15 broad spectrum, but depending on your skin and how much you re-apply you may need to consider higher.

If you suffer from skin concerns like acne, eczema, psoriasis, or hives, you have all the more reason to be protecting your skin as excess sun exposure may worsen these concerns. If you use a retinol or retinoid product you must wear sunscreen, as these products work to thin the skin barrier putting you at increased risk of sun damage (learn more in our blog).

What about a “base tan?” 

Exposure to UV radiation causes our skin to release more melanin - which IS a wonderful protective mechanism for DNA damage; however, it only provides a small amount of protection (think, SPF 1-4). This is nowhere near the benefits of an SPF 15-30 sunscreen.

Regardless of how light or dark your skin may be, sunscreen, shade, and/or protective clothing are your best friend for preventing photoaging - wrinkles, dark spots, changes in structure - as well as preventing skin cancers.

Need more support?

For more skin support in general, and specific skin concerns (like acne and eczema) consider working with one of our naturopathic doctors.

For cosmetic acupuncture and facial treatments to naturally stimulate collagen alongside your other cosmetic treatments, consult with our acupuncturist.

To shop our naturopathic doctor approved mineral sunscreens, check out our store that has a variety of great quality products that are used and loved by our practitioners and patients, or ask for a sample the next time you are in!