Let’s face it, we live in a very appearance-oriented society. Almost
everyone wants to look younger and more attractive. Rather than taking a
natural anti-aging
route, many people will go to extremes to enhance their appearance,
buying all kinds of pricey products or even undergoing chemical peels or
plastic surgery in an attempt to stave off the signs of aging. However,
sometimes it is a heck of a lot easier to just take preventive measures
so your skin is healthier to begin with. One major case in point: Don’t
smoke. In addition to all the other ways it is bad for you, now there
is new evidence linking smoking to the premature aging of facial skin,
which pretty much confirms what we’ve all known for years.
A new study that took place at Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland, Ohio, focused on twins to determine that
smoking can truly make a difference in the way a person looks by
hastening the signs of aging. The subjects were 79 pairs of twins,
ranging in age from 18 to 78. They were all attending an annual twin
festival in the town of Twinsburg, Ohio.
The researchers had a professional photographer take a
picture of each twin individually. The photos were then assigned to one
of two groups. The first group contained the images of 45 sets of twins
in which one of them was a smoker and one was not. The second group
consisted of images of the remainder of the sets of twins, all of whom
smoked, but in these cases one of the twins had picked up the habit at
least five years earlier than their sibling had.
The pictures of the participants were then shown to two
physicians and a medical student, who estimated their ages based solely
on the appearance of a face. For the subjects in the first group, in
which one twin smoked and the other didn’t, the smoker was believed to
be older 57 percent more often. And in the second group, even though
both of the twins were smokers, the length of time they had smoked was
important. Those twins who had been smoking for several years longer
were tagged as older in 63 percent of the cases. That means the changes
that occur to one’s appearance—lines, bags under the eyes, loose
skin—begin to develop within a few years, not after decades of heavy
smoking.
A number of other factors were considered that might undo
natural anti aginge efforts and add years to a person’s face, such as
skipping sunscreen application, alcohol use, and stress and anxiety
levels, which were all fairly comparable between pairs of twins. There
were, however, some other potential differences that were not
considered, including dietary habits and socioeconomic circumstances.
But even with these types of issues possibly influencing the addition of
lines, wrinkles, and the like, there was still highly visible,
side-by-side evidence of an association between smoking and looking
older.
This should come as little surprise to anyone, since plenty
of earlier research has shown that smoking has negative effects on the
skin. In fact, a study from way back in 1971 at the University of
California found that wrinkles were much more prevalent in smokers than
non-smokers from the age of 30 on. And by their 40s, smokers frequently
had as many wrinkles as people two decades older who didn’t smoke. Not
to mention the stained teeth and bad breath the habit causes.
What it all adds up to is one more drawback to being a
smoker. Maybe this is enough proof to give the more vain among us the
impetus they need to finally make a full-on effort to quit. It’s hard to
fathom why anyone would want to start smoking these days, with all of
the copious health reasons not to, from an increased risk of several
types of cancer to emphysema to dementia.
But we do know that nicotine is very addictive and quitting is tough.
So we won’t judge your motivation if you are ready to give up tobacco.
Just focus on the task at hand and after a few weeks, you will be
looking and feeling better than you have in a long time
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