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Anti Aging Treatments

March 31, 2008

The use of anti-ageing skin care products these days is on the increase and all things considered it is perfectly natural; it is not unreasonable to want to continue looking youthful for as long as possible when you consider how much longer most of us are living! Skin is important so a great deal of effort goes into the preparation of beauty products especially those that increase the production of collagen, which is the primary protein in skin; with around a quarter of our skin protein being collagen, the importance of this substance has not gone unnoticed. This category of skin products is in fact related to another group of everyday products that help reduce the signs of aging; called antioxidants, they help flush out toxins from the body and help reduce the signs of aging.

You probably know many anti-oxidants by name, including vitamin C, the use of which is still, even now, hotly debated in the science and nutrition community. 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 get around this some skin care treatments are based on derivatives of vitamin C, which are more stable and less expensive. Although these products are good, they cannot actually compare with vitamin C but fortunately vitamin E and alpha-lipoic acid are also anti-oxidants so can be used to gain the same effect.

Vitamin E is found in the blood and is an antioxidant that is also used to increase the body’s defenses against other health problems; it helps build resistance against infection like cancer for example. 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 secondary but more important use of phytochemicals is the effect they have on the prevention of some strains of cancer; for instance:

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

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

Surprisingly, the group of vitamins; B5, B6, and B12 have also shown that they can be used to help reduce the effects of ageing. This just goes to highlight just how complex and far reaching the whole field of anti-ageing skin care products is and why so much more research is required. Gradually, new discoveries will be made to advance our understanding of the aging process; 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; man-made products may never replace those that are available naturally! Simple things that can make a difference in slowing the signs of ageing; these include physical activity, restful sleep, maintaining good dietary habits and removing stress from your life.

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