How Skin Ages

How Skin Ages:

What is happening to my skin?
It's a common question from patients concerned about the unwanted - and often premature - signs of aging skin. As you know, there are multiple factors contributing to these signs. The following is a quick review.

It is about cell turnover
Skin's top layers act as a protective barrier for the body, keeping harmful disease and pollutants out and essential body fluids in. At the deepest layer, new cells are formed that begin to migrate up toward the skin's surface. There, they are eventually exfoliated.

• In young, healthy skin, this cellular turnover process takes about 40 days: 28 days to reach the surface and 12 days to slough off.
• In young, healthy skin, new skin cells are well organized, uniform in size, shape, pigmentation and structure.
  

The Changing Function of our Aging Skin
Over time, skin accumulates damage from many sources - such as sun exposure, hormonal changes, trauma, pollution and more. The functions of young, healthy skin start to break down.

On the surface, aging skin becomes discolored, lax, wrinkled, dry and rough. Cell turnover slows, reducing the availability of essential nutrients. Moreover, instead of producing healthy new cells, skin functions now produce cells that are abnormal.

Below the surface, collagen and elastin production slows. Collagen becomes disorganized, less dense and coarser and loses its uniform construction. This, combined with degeneration of elastin in the dermis, causes skin to wrinkle and sag. Less blood flow and moisture result in the dull, lifeless skin patients complain about.

Understanding Skin's Structure

This diagram, provided by http://www.yestheyrefake.net (thank you), will help you to understand your skin's structure, and how and why wrinkles develop.

The Skin & Its Definitions

A. melanocyte: an epidermal cell that produces melanin
B. muscle: a body tissue consisting of long cells that contract when stimulated and produce motion
C. sebaceous gland: any of the small sacculated glands lodged in the substance of the derma, usu. opening into the hair follicles, and secreting an oily or greasy material composed in great part of fat which softens and lubricates the hair and skin
D. hair shaft: the part of a hair projecting beyond the skin
E. epidermis: the outer epithelial layer of the external integument of the animal body that is derived from the embryonic epiblast; specif : the outer nonsensitive and nonvascular layer of the skin that overlies the dermis
F. dermis: the sensitive vascular inner mesodermic layer of the skin -- called also corium, cutis
G. subcutaneous tissue: of or pertaining to tissue being, living, or made under the top layers of skin
H. fat: animal tissue consisting chiefly of cells distended with greasy or oily matter
I. arterial blood vessel: any of the vessels through which bright red, oxygenated blood coming back from the lungs circulates in the body .
J. sweat gland: a simple tubular gland of the skin that secretes perspiration and in humans is widely distributed in nearly all parts of the skin -- called also sudoriferous gland
K. hair follicle: the tubular epithelial sheath that surrounds the lower part of the hair shaft and encloses at the bottom a vascular papilla supplying the growing basal part of the hair with nourishment
L. Pacinian corpuscle: an oval capsule that terminates some sensory nerve fibers esp. in the skin of the hands and feet