Understanding Wrinkles

Everybody knows that wrinkles, age spots, creases, crow's feet, sagging, and sallow skin is caused by too much sun or too much smoking, but did you know they can also be caused by too much salt? Here's what you need to understand about the process of aging skin so that you can keep your own skin supple, healthy, youthful, and beautiful.

For most people who experience wrinkling, a combination of factors over a period of decades make skin "tired." Air pollution, fungal infection, UV-A exposure, some prescription medications, autoimmmune conditions, and inflammation conspire to release massive amounts of toxic free radicals. They accumulate in skin cells and activate a sodium channel that essentially floods the cell with the sodium from salt. The skin cell survives but it cannot draw in the nutrients it needs or produce the collagen that undergirds its neighbors. The result is old-looking skin.

And even people who use sun screen religiously can suffer aging skin. The problem is that most sunblocks with SPF values of 15 to 30 let the most damaging ultraviolet rays, the UV-A rays, right on through. Sunblock protects against UV-B, which is worst between 10 am and 3 pm, but not against UV-A, which is present all day. And there is just as much UV-A in winter sun as in summer sun, even though the UV forecasts show lower numbers.

Exposure to the more harmful UV-A rays for just one hour a day for five days a week for five weeks will damage skin. UV-A activates a system of enzymes known as the metalloproteinases. These enzymes break down the connective collagen in the skin. Tiny cracks appear, then full-blown wrinkling. This leaves more skin surface to dry out and become even more fragile and more wrinkled.

The skin does have ways to protect itself, primarily through making pigments. These pigments, of course, are what make tanned skin beautiful, but the also can accumulate into freckles and age spots. Add to this process any deficiency of vitamin C, vitamin E, and coenzyme Q10, and non-smokers can become just as wrinkled as smokers. Sun, winter, summer, spring, or fall, is the enemy of smooth skin.