About Wrinkles and Skin Irregularities - How to Prevent and Cure Wrinkles

All people get wrinkles as one is aging, but everyone do not get them at an equal speed, and some people have a young looking skin even at a high age. This fact suggests that wrinkles can be prevented and cured to a great extend.

Wrinkles occur because the skin gradually gets less elastic, because it gets thinner and because one looses the fat right under the skin in the face and some other places in the body. Then the skin is more easily permanently folded or permanently stretched out of shape when daily mechanical impacts occur.

The skin tend to get inelastic because the fibers in the skin made of the structure protein collagen bind together to a rigid grid by a reaction with sugar molecules in the skin. The sugar molecules will after this reaction be bridges between the collagen molecules.

Damage by exposure to excessive sun-rays promotes this process. Excessive intake of carbohydrates, diabetes and other diseases that increases the sugar concentration in body tissues may also increase this process.

The skin has however mechanism to tidy away irregularities and repair damage that result in wrinkles. A general unhealthy lifestyle with exposure to toxins and too little of necessary vitamins, minerals, essential fats and proteins will make these mechanisms less effective and let wrinkles emerge more easily.

A general healthy lifestyle with furnishings of all necessary nutrients and with regular exercise will help to hold away wrinkles. In addition these specific lifestyle measures are useful.

- Avoid prolonged exposure of unprotected skin to sun-rays. Especially avoid exposure that causes sun-burns. Use some protection on the skin when you are out in the sunshine a long time.

- Eat much fish and seafood. THe nutrients in these food sources seem to greatly boost the repair capacity of the skin and also make the skin more robust against impacts from the sun.

- Pure olive oil applied onto the sin or topical creams containing olive oil help to protect the skin and increase its repair capacity.

- The natural oily substance squalan applied on the skin or products with that substance also help to keep the skin elastic and boosts its capacity to overcome impacts and damages.

- Glycosaminoglycans, for example hyaluronic acid, are natural complex carbohydrates, build up of modified sugar units, that help the building blocks of the skin to stick together in the right way and to maintain the right water balance in the skin. They also promote synthesis of the structure protein collagen. Used in topical product they may help against wrinkles.

- An extra supply of vitamins A, D and the fatty substance lecithin is often useful for the skin health and its ability to repair damage. Lecithin is an important building substance in all body cells and also contain components that are used as signal substances during growth and regeneration processes in the body.

- There are many natural creams in the market to make the skin more robust against impacts that can cause wrinkles and to increase the repair capacity of the skin. These products will often contain olive oil, glycosaminoglycans, natural poly-unsaturated fats, squalan and vitamins A and D.

- Natural drugs formulated to increase the production of growth hormone in the body may help against wrinkles. The increased hormone production may make the skin grow thicker, stimulate repair processes of protein structures and help to restore a more juvenile fat distribution in the body. These effects will then help to take away wrinkles.

- Do not smoke. Smoking decreases the repair capacity of the skin to a great extend.

THere are several pharmacological drugs or surgical therapies that are effective against wrinkles when these are not too deep. However, these treatment modalities can give dangerous side effects and also destroy the skin if they are not exerted skillfully and with extreme caution.

- Several chemical derivatives of vitamin A, for example tretionin (Retin-A) can stimulate the skin to repair itself form wrinkles, but these can also irritate the skin.

- Epidermal growth factor (EGF) is a protein-like natural hormone that stimulates skin cells to proliferate, stimulate production of the structure protein collagen and stimulate over-all skin healing. It is used in topical products for treatment of wrinkles and to help the skin heal from destruction caused by various factors, for example burns.

- Botox or botulinum toxin is a nerve laming substance produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. It is used as a means against wrinkles in certain parts of the face. It makes the muscles just under the skin relax and the skin will then appear less wrinkled.

- By radical etching, the outer skin layer, epidermis, and some of the underlying connective tissue layer, dermis, are taken away with an etching chemical solution. The skin then regrows from beneath without much of the wrinkles and other irregularities. The skin will however loose more or less of its color by this therapy and if not done extremely skillfully, bad scarring can be the result.

- Laser and light treatments can help against wrinkles. There are two kind of such treatments. By one type one uses fairly weak laser rays or light sources of specific wavelengths that penetrate deep into the skin. The rays stimulate the repair processes in the skin. Devices for home treatment by such light can be found on the market.

- By the other treatment strong laser rays that do not penetrate so deeply are used to burn away the outer layers of the skin. New fresh outer skin layers then grow back from beneath. If not controlled extremely well also this kind of radical treatment can destroy the skin.