Prevent skin aging

Vanity plays a large part in the use of popular anti-ageing skin care products and treatments; when most of us can expect to live longer and have fuller, more active lives, this is hardly surprising. This group of beauty products generally works by enabling the synthesis of collagen, the main protein of connective tissue in animals and the most abundant in our body; collagen is so abundant, it makes up about a quarter of the total protein content of structural protein found in skin. This category of skin products is in fact related to another group of everyday products that help reduce the signs of aging; we call them antioxidants, they aid the repair of cell damage associated with cell damage.

Vitamin C is probably one of the better known anti-oxidants in use today but the debate about the daily quota required is ongoing. The problem with vitamin C derived skin care treatments is they can become oxidized when exposed to the atmosphere, often even before they are used.

To overcome this problem, manufacturers use alternative skin care treatments that still provide the same benefits but not the high manufacturing costs. These new anti-oxidant products are not quite as good as vitamin C although other naturally occurring compounds, vitamin E and lipoic acid can achieve the same effect.

Found in human blood, vitamin E is not only an antioxidant but is designed to boost the immune system's resistance to illness; it has many functions including inhibiting the formation of cancer cells. Lipoic acid is also an energy making component of the body, found in every cell; an additional function is to repair skin damage caused by the normal aging process.

Another group of products used to reduce the visible signs of ageing are phytochemicals which are compounds extracted from various plants and used in many anti-ageing skin care products. A further benefit of these phytochemicals is their ability to prevent the onset of certain cancers; for instance:

• Cancer of the Prostate
• Cancer that attacks the Breast
• Cancer that attacks the Colon

These are some of the most common (and increasingly so) cancers in the world today.

For some time now it has also been known that the vitamins B5, B6 and B12 also have anti-ageing skin care properties. 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. Whilst a great deal has been learned about this subject, it is only the tip of the iceberg; there is still a long way to go however, before methods that successfully reduce the effects of age are commonplace.

Hopefully, these challenges will get resolved in due course and better and cheaper anti-ageing skin care products will be produced. Scientific research into anti-aging products is still in the early stages but they should never be relied upon; we must not forget however, that there are many more natural methods we can all use to reduce the signs of aging on a regular basis. Natural methods are known, but few people actually follow them; what proportion of the population actually eats healthily, takes plenty of exercise, drink sufficient water and obtain restful and regular sleep?