Anti-Aging supplements: A reality check

There has been a great demand for anti-aging supplements over the past years. From moisturizers to topical creams, these products offer one thing in common—the promise to reduce the effects of aging.

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But are they really effective?

Citing antioxidants as an example, Dr. Karen E. Burke states that majority of all available anti-aging products contain varying concentrations of antioxidants that are not well-absorbed by the skin. However, she notes that there are some that have been proven to decrease the effect of sun exposure and skin damage: selenium, vitamin E, and vitamin C.

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Meanwhile, a propose the effectiveness of anti-aging creams, Dr. Karin Patterson says the overall picture is complicated.

She explains: “Certain over-the-counter creams and anti-aging substances do work, but it’s not one size fits all. People have different levels of hormones, vitamins, exercise, stress, time spent in the sun – all play a role in healthy skin. So it’s usually a combination of things.”

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This, according to Dr. Patterson, is one of the reasons anti-aging cream or supplement is unlikely to be effective for all users. She also stresses that the lack of concentration on some products may be a factor to its ineffectiveness.  

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REPOST: Starting to see some wrinkles?

Having wrinkles may be inevitable as we age, but there are still some ways to slow it down and even prevent it. How is it possible? Read this NorthJersey.com article.

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Remember the days of tanning at the beach for hours? You might not, but your skin sure does. In fact, exposure to sunlight and its ultraviolet rays is one of the main causes of wrinkles as we age.

Other external factors include smoking, poor eating habits and dehydration. Internally, loss of collagen and elasticity is the culprit for the formation of wrinkles.

And, one’s face is not the only place where wrinkles appear. According to the website Medical News Today, wrinkles appear on all parts of the body that receive the most sun exposure, including the backs of the hands, face and forearms. As we age, our skin gets thinner, drier and less elastic. Genetic factors also play a role, controlling skin elasticity, how wrinkly a person becomes and when and where the wrinkles will appear.

Inga Bufaro, a cosmetic physician assistant at the Dermatology Group (Riverdale, Verona, West Orange, Paramus and Nutley), says that fat loss under the skin is what causes sagging and wrinkles to appear and what makes the skin look older

"That’s why we can’t be the same weight in our 40s and 50s as we are in our 20s," says Bufaro, explaining that weight loss, particularly loss of fat in the face, makes wrinkles and loss of skin elasticity more prominent, resulting in an older look.

While wrinkles may be an inevitable part of the aging process, their formation can be slowed down and even prevented.

"Always wear sun protection during the day, as wrinkles and sun damage progress over the years," says Bufano.

She recommends wearing an SPF 30 on the face daily and an SPF 50 when spending prolonged periods in the sun, such as vacationing at the beach or doing outdoor activities. Other tips she offers for reducing the appearance of wrinkles: stay hydrated (drinking eight glasses of water a day), following a healthy, well-balanced diet featuring lean proteins, fruits and vegetables and wearing a wide brimmed hat when outdoors in direct sunlight and wearing sunglasses to prevent squinting.

"Anything that is good for the body is good for the skin," Bufano says.

Conversely, what is bad for the body is also detrimental to the skin. According to Medical News Today, regular smoking can accelerate the aging of skin due to reduced blood supply.

Other factors that can lead to wrinkles include genetics, type of clothing worn, light skin pigmentation, occupations that require exposure to more sunlight and UV rays (such as farming and gardening) and repeated facial expressions, such as frowning, smiling and squinting.

Even with healthy living and eating, wrinkles form as we age. However, today there are ways to reduce their appearance.

"The use of Retinol creams and acids at night can help rebuild collagen and stimulate cell renewal," says Bufaro, who warns that these creams can make the skin more "photo sensitive." Use should be decreased in the summer months to minimize sunburns.

"If you are using Retin A products during the summer, it is important to cover your skin," says Bufaro, who recommends sitting under an umbrella while at the beach, wearing at least a 4-inch-wide brim hat and using an SPF 50 on the skin.


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REPOST: Anti-aging Advice for Every Ethnicity

This Allure.com article shares that aging clearly differs from person to person no matter what skin type or color you have.

Yes, it's politically incorrect, but wrinkles and spots discriminate based on skin color all the time. Whites, blacks, Latinas, and Asians are all prone to developing lines, sagging, and spots at different rates and in different ways, but the way you battle back makes a big difference.

MULTIRACIAL 

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There's no crystal ball if you're multiracial, but it's not impossible to predict your future. "In general, your aging is going to depend on the prominent characteristics that you inherited," says Mary Lupo, a clinical professor of dermatology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. Most mixed-race women's skin tone falls somewhere between their parents', so the way their skin ages will also likely fall somewhere in the middle. That means, for example, that if you're half black and half white, you probably won't see wrinkles in your early 30s unless you're very, very fair.

Aging clearly differs from person to person—and from heritage to heritage—but these are the top issues for mulitracial women:

• Midface atrophy. It's about as fun as it sounds: By the mid-40s, the tear-trough area under the eye starts to sag, making the cheekbones and middle of the face look flat, rather than plump and youthful.

• Pigmentation. "For people of mixed race, mottled pigmentation—where large, irregular areas on the nose or forehead are a darker color—is a big complaint," says Lupo. "And it's usually from not using sunscreen."

WHITE

All right, out with it: "The fairer your skin, the more signs of aging you're going to have," says Doris Day, a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center. The sun—and pale skin's minuscule protection against it—is primarily to blame. UV rays break down collagen, causing wrinkles that can start appearing in your 20s. Your skin tries to fight back, making pigment to protect itself, and along come the dark spots. But there is a bright side: "Caucasians can generally be more aggressive with treatments since they don't have to worry as much about postinflammatory hyperpigmentation [discoloration that can pop up after inflammation and take weeks to months to clear]," says Day.

If You Do Nothing Else...

• Get a hardcore sun screen. "A Caucasian's innate protection is relatively low, so you have to do more externally," says Day. In fact, fair skin is naturally equipped with the equivalent of a mere SPF 3.4 (whereas dark skin has an SPF of about 13.4). "So at minimum, apply SPF 30 every single day," says Day.

• Use retinoids every night. Light skin may get stuck with wrinkles and spots, but there's one way to attack them all at once: "Retinoids increase make it smoother, and promote normal maturation of cells, which can help prevent skin cancers," says Day.

• Quit smoking. Besides the whole lung-cancer thing, "cigarettes are toxic to the skin, depriving it of oxygen and increasing the risk for skin cancer," says Day. That means for people who are already on the fast track to wrinkles (i.e., you, whitey), smoking throws the aging process into overdrive.

LATINA 

Image Source: allure.com

There are light Latinas who age like Caucasians and very dark Latinas who age like African-Americans, says Maritza Perez, director of cosmetic dermatology at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Medical Center in New York City. "However, the great majority are beige to brown, and they show signs of aging approximately ten years later than Caucasians."

The main, near-universal complaint, she says, is melasma—brown patches of discoloration that appear most often on the cheeks, chin, upper lip, and forehead. (Women of Mexican descent tend to be particularly hard hit—approximately 66 percent will develop melasma during pregnancy, according to one survey.) Perez recommends a regimen of bleaching creams (look for those with hydroquinone, kojic acid, or azelaic acid); antioxidants like niacinamide, idebenone, or vitamin C to impede future damage; and the right sunscreen. "Melasma isn't just induced by ultraviolet light," she says. "It's also caused by visible light, and to protect against that, you need a sunscreen with titanium dioxide or zinc oxide."

"Some Latinas have used these home remedies to alleviate pigmentation, but they're a bad idea," says perez. "Lime and lemon can cause a phototoxic reaction that may result in hyperpigmentation, and cocoa butter is occlusive and comedogenic, so it can cause acne and postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. plus, they don't lighten skin."

BLACK

Go ahead and smile—you can even laugh and squint if you want to—because you're probably not going to start seeing wrinkles until you're in your 50s. "The phrase 'Black don't crack' is true. The more pigment you have, the less you wrinkle," says Fran Cook-Bolden, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. And because of that extra melanin (and therefore built-in protection), she adds, "for women of color, wrinkles happen much, much later than for Caucasians." Like 20 years later.

You may get a pass on wrinkles, but you're not Peter Pan. Your two biggest issues:

• Sagging. "Black women experience aging with volume loss," says Cook-Bolden. Creams with peptides, like Olay Regenerist Micro-Sculpting Cream, are the first step, because "they help stimulate collagen," she says. For the quickest, most dramatic results, a dermatologist can inject fillers to enhance volume or perform in-office radio-frequency treatments, like Cutera, to tighten sagging skin.

• Uneven skin tone. "Black skin has melanosomes, or pigment packages, within the pigment cells that are large and more widely dispersed, and they can react aggressively to the slightest irritation," says Cook-Bolden. To get rid of dark spots, she likes bleaching creams with hydroquinone (start with a 2 percent over-the-counter version, such as Ambi Skincare Fade Cream) dotted just on the spots in the evening. "Some people abuse hydroquinone because they want the skin on their face to be lighter all over," says Cook-Bolden. "If you routinely apply it everywhere, you risk your face being several shades lighter than your body." Dot the solution on your dark spots only, and stop using it as soon as those blotches match the surrounding skin. At that point, switch to something less potent, like glycolic acid or retinol, to maintain your results.

MIDDLE EASTERN/SOUTH ASIAN

Your Blessing: Thanks to the extrapigment in your skin, lines generally don't show up until the 40s, 50s, or even later. "Some of these women never develop permanent wrinkles," says Hema Sundaram, a dermatologist in Rockville, Maryland, and Fairfax, Virginia.

Your Curse: You still have a good chance of developing dark blotches from cumulative sun exposure, hormones, or irritation. To treat them, Sundaram recommends Elure Advanced Skin Lightening Lotion to break down melanin, or if you're ready for the next step, the eMatrix sublative laser. "It is a fractional radio-frequency laser that minimizes the risk of postinflammatory hyperpigmentation," she says.

Top Three Ways to Beat Dark Spots:

• Jump on the retinoid bandwagon. "It's often better than hydroquinone to treat perpigmentation, in this type of skin," Sundaram says. "Biopelle Retriderm Serum and SkinMedica Tri-Retinol Complex are good. You can use them with the Elure cream—just use the retinoid at night."

• Consider regular light laser peels. They can make a big difference, and they're fast. Sundaram's pick: The CO2RE laser. "It's a radio-frequency-activated laser that produces a controlled micropeel to restore skin's glow and improve hyperpigmentation, as well as prominent pores." For best results, she recommends five or six treatments, about two to three weeks apart.

• Beat breakouts. Getting acne under control will help minimize the subsequent postinflammatory hyperpigmentation [PIH]," she says. "I recommend cleansers with jojoba beads for gentle exfoliation, chemical peels, and prescription Ziana or Epiduo gels to treat both the acne and the PIH."

EAST/SOUTHEAST ASIAN 

Image Source: allure.com

Most Asians want to be lighter, more radiant, and luminous," says Jessie Cheung, an associate professor of dermatology and codirector of cosmetic dermatology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Asian skin naturally has more melanocytes (cells that produce melanin) than fairer skin. Melanin protects skin from sun damage, but it also can go haywire and lead to brown spots, uneven skin tone, and melasma.

To treat these issues, Cheung recommends a bleaching agent, such as hydroquinone or kojic acid, or pigment-targeting lasers. If you have brown spots, Cheung says, Elure Advanced Skin Lightening Lotion gives faster results than traditional bleaching creams. "This is a great breakthrough," she says. "It lightens the skin by breaking up melanin, whereas bleaching agents such as hydroquinone primarily prevent new melanin formation. You can use both—some of my patients do Elure in the morning and hydroquinone at night, which cuts down on the potential irritation."

Asians are also particularly prone to seborrheic keratoses, raised brown bumps that can be frozen, cauterized, or removed with a scalpel.

Lift and Glow is an anti-aging serum that contains effective ingredients like resveratrol and Matrixyl 3000, which helps in reducing fine lines and wrinkles. Follow this Twitter page for more updates.

Toxic metals at dangerous levels found in lipstick and lip gloss---study

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“I entered the cosmetics industry because I wanted more women to use cosmetics made with safe, healthful ingredients.”—Gloria Swanson, actress, clothes designer, and founder of Essence of Nature Cosmetics.

If Gloria Swanson were alive today, she would have been one of the active advocates of a healthy lifestyle, especially when it comes to cosmetics use.

Image Source: nytimes.com

Makeup is a crucial touch in projecting an attractive persona, but only when it doesn’t damage the skin or the body. Unfortunately, some researchers at the University of California conducted an analysis of the contents of lipstick and lip gloss. They detected toxic metals like lead, cadmium, chromium, aluminum, and five others at levels that could be significantly harmful to users.

The study’s lead author, S. Katharine Hammond, professor of environmental health sciences, says: "Just finding these metals isn't the issue; it's the levels that matter."

"Some of the toxic metals are occurring at levels that could possibly have an effect in the long term," Hammond adds.

Image Source: ktbs.com

The researchers emphasize that although other cosmetic products may also contain metals at dangerous levels, lipsticks and glosses raise the alarm because they are often absorbed into the skin and swallowed. On this note, the study proponents classify those who repeatedly apply lip color and gloss within the day as excessive users who risk an 87-milligram ingestion of these metals daily.

Pausing and thinking before puckering up for rouge or taking care to choose reputable and reliable brands are sensible moves to avoid long-term effects not just on the skin, but more so on the body’s overall condition.

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REPOST: The skin "talks" to the liver

According to a new study, skin can affect the metabolism of the liver. Read more in this MedicalNewsToday article.

Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have discovered that the skin is capable of communicating with the liver. The discovery has surprised the scientists, and they say that it may help our understanding of how skin diseases can affect the rest of the body.

Professor Susanne Mandrup and her research group in collaboration with Nils Færgeman's research group at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Southern Denmark was actually studying something completely different when they made the groundbreaking discovery: That the skin, which is the body's largest organ, can "talk" to the liver.

"We have showed that the skin affects the metabolism in the liver, and that is quite a surprise", say Susanne Mandrup and Ditte Neess, a former student in the Mandrup research group and now laboratory manager in Professor Nils Færgeman's group.

The phenomenon was observed in the researcher's laboratory mice. The Mandrup and Færgeman groups work with so-called knock-out mice, in which a specific fat binding protein called acyl CoA binding protein has been removed (knocked out). Some knock-out mice produced by the researchers had a strange greasy fur, and they had difficulties being weaned from their mother. In the weaning period they gained less weight and showed a failure to thrive. Analyses also showed that the mice accumulated fat in the liver at weaning.

"At first we thought that the fat accumulation in the liver was linked with the fact that the gene was missing in the liver of the knock-out mice. But this was ruled out by a series of studies, and we had to find another explanation", says Ditte Neess.

She and her colleagues took another look at the rumpled and weak knock-out mice. Their fur was greasy, and they had a leaky skin from which they lost more water than normal mice.

"When they lose water, they also lose heat. We therefore asked ourselves whether this water and heat loss could be the reason why the mice accumulated fat in the liver and became weak when weaned from their mother", says Ditte Neess.

To clarify this, the researchers made ​​some mice that lacked the fat binding protein only in the skin. Similar to the full knockouts these mice had difficulties after weaning and accumulated fat in the liver. So this showed that the lack of the fat-binding protein in the skin was sufficient to induce accumulation of fat in the liver.

To get to the bottom of how a defect in the skin "talks" to the liver, the researchers decided to cover the mice with vaseline. This would prevent water evaporating from the skin and thus stopping the heat loss. As a result the fat accumulation in the liver disappeared. But as vaseline contains fat, that could theoretically be absorbed by the skin or ingested by the mice, the researchers were a little unsure if there were side effects from the vaseline. A student proposed to cover the mice with liquid latex, which she found in a local sex shop.

Having covered the mice in blue latex the researchers saw that fat accumulation in the liver again disappeared.

"We believe that the leaking of water from the skin makes the mice feel cold, and that this leads to breaking down of fat in their adipose (fat) tissue. The broken down fat is then moved to the liver. The mice move energy from the tissues to the liver", Susanne Mandrup and Ditte Neess explain.


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REPOST: How to Perform a Self-Exam For Skin Cancer

Did you know that it takes just five (5) minutes to do a self-check for skin cancer? Read how from this ABC News article:

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Got 5 minutes? That's all it takes to check yourself for skin cancer, the most common type of cancer in the United States.

Though melanoma (the deadliest form of this disease) has been increasing by six percent annually, only 18 percent of women have ever had an annual skin check from a doctor, according to CDC data. Another survey from L'Oréal Paris found that 88 percent of women have never discussed melanoma with their docs and a slim 30 percent do a monthly skin self-exam, as recommended by the Skin Cancer Foundation.

If you're guilty of skimping on monthly self-exams, no worries—they're easy! Here's the best way to do an expert-approved check.

Find a Bright Room

The best place to do your monthly check is in a bright room.

"My favorite location is a store dressing room because the lighting is strong and you can use the three-way mirror to see your back and behind," says Franks. But it's perfectly fine if you want to stick to a full-length mirror at home.

Remember 'ABCDE'

Once you've scoped out a spot, start by carefully examining your body front and back in the mirror, then check each side with your arms raised above you. Use the acronym ABCDE to help you pick out suspicious moles, says Franks.

Look for:

Asymmetry -- mole's halves don't match

Borders are uneven

Color isn't uniform

Diameter is larger than size of a pencil eraser (4 millimeters)

Evolution of the mole-growth, inflammation, itching

Check Unlikely Places

Bend elbows and carefully look at forearms, underarms, and palms. Your palms as well as bottoms of feet and nail beds are the places where you're more likely to get acral lentiginous melanoma (ALM) —a type of melanoma that hits women of color more than any other group.

Fingers and Toes

Check the backs of your legs and feet, the spaces between your toes, and the soles of your feet. "Don't forget to examine your fingernails and toenails too," Franks stresses. "New and unusual pigmented bands on the nails could be a sign of cancer."

If you spot a vertical line in any shade of brown extending from cuticle to the tip of your fingernail, make sure to check in with your dermatologist.

Above the Shoulders

Examine the back of your neck and scalp with a hand mirror. "It's ideal if you can get a friend or partner to help you and using a blow dryer will give you a closer look," says Franks. Although less than six percent of melanomas pop up on the scalp, they can be deadlier because they're often found at later stages.

Use a Hand Mirror

Instead of standing in front of a wall mirror, use a hand mirror to take a closer look at your back and butt, says Debra Jaliman, MD, a dermatologist in New York City and author of Skin Rules. See anything funky?

"Don't wait to get a mole checked because you never know what it could be," says Jaliman. "I delayed my appointment for four months and it turned out to be melanoma, scary but curable."

Most derms will be able to get you in ASAP if you spot a suspicious mole or lesion.

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REPOST: 3 Bad Habits That Are Making Your Skin Age Faster (VIDEO)

Why do some women's skin age faster than others? Watch the video as Dr. Amy Wechsler explains the process of aging in this Huffington Post article.

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Have you ever looked into the mirror and asked yourself, "How did I wake up with these wrinkles?" Well, you really haven't been paying close attention to your skin. According to dermatologist Dr. Amy Wechsler, aging doesn't happen overnight.

The collagen in our skin slowly breaks down as we grow older. However, there are three factors that can speed up this aging process: excessive sun exposure, smoking and chronic stress. Understanding and eliminating these bad habits can help you to live a more beautiful life.

"I think we should embrace our age no matter what it is -- the goal is to feel and look as healthy as possible," adds Dr. Wechsler.

Watch the video above to find at which age collagen usually starts to break down and exactly how these three factors of aging affect your skin.

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