8 replies to this topic

[InquilineKea]

There is turnover in the upper layer of skin cells, after all.

Also, there's turnover in the collagen cells that support the skin. It's not a very fast turnover rate (~15 years), but if that is the case, then maybe I don't necessarily have to worry about the UV damage I suffered as a child, for example?

I'm wondering - maybe UV damage is a lot worse once you're "old" (as in, mid-30s or over?) That's when your body can't "replace" the damage as well as it used to?

[LexLux]

I think retinoic acids like tretinoin and tazarotene help with photodamage:

A review of tazarotene in the treatment of photodamaged skin

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › ... › Clin Interv Aging › v.3(1); Mar 2008‎

[niner]

Someone in this forum who knows more about skin than I do once said that if you avoid further damage, your skin can get better over time. This has been my experience- My skin has been slowly improving since I've been taking better care of it. This doesn't mean that you will eliminate all damage. For that, you are going to need some better technology. Avoid UV, do what you can to prevent glycation, and don't stress about the past. Donate to SENS.

Edited by niner, 30 March 2014 - 07:44 PM.

[twinkly]

Someone in this forum who knows more about skin than I do once said that if you avoid further damage, your skin can get better over time. This has been my experience- My skin has been slowly improving since I've been taking better care of it. This doesn't mean that you will eliminate all damage. For that, you are going to need some better technology. Avoid UV, do what you can to prevent glycation, and don't stress about the past. Donate to SENS.

Hi niner,

How do you stave off glycation? Supplementation? Not overcooking foods?

[Vardarac]

UV induces breakages in DNA and things called thymine dimers, where pyrimidine bases on one strand of DNA become fused together and prevent the strand from hydrogen bonding to its partner.

Unless repaired by the body's internal repair mechanisms, such DNA lesions can lead to further replication mistakes and therefore cell death, phenotypic change, and cancer. Note well: The body's repair and replication mechanisms can make mistakes as well, meaning that the only way to go is downhill as far as DNA's fidelity goes.

These forms of damage are permanent and will inevitably accumulate with lifetime exposure; they cannot be repaired with our current technology. In the future, I speculate that we may be able to replenish our stem cells with cells that have retained and/or been selected for genetic fidelity in a cell bank somewhere, or perhaps even with freshly-synthesized genomes, where sequence and epigenetic status of the individual in a youthful state are stored on a computer.

Edited by Vardarac, 30 March 2014 - 09:06 PM.

[niner]

How do you stave off glycation? Supplementation? Not overcooking foods?

There's two kinds of Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGEs) to consider: The ones that form outside the body, from cooking, which result in inflammatory problems, and the ones formed inside the body, which result in damage to skin, vasculature, tendons, and other important things. You can avoid the external AGEs by using lower temperature cooking methods, or going raw if feasible. Helen Vlassara has done a lot of the science in this area, and has a low-AGE cookbook that's worth looking at.

The internal AGEs are harder to avoid entirely, but can be reduced. The most important kind are formed when sugars in your blood react with long-lived proteins like those in the extracellular matrix. There are two avenues of control: The first is keeping your blood sugar under control. Diet is the first line of defense there, and there are drugs that can be used, like metformin or acarbose. The second avenue of control is catching the AGEs in the act of formation, and providing something that they can react harmlessly with. These compounds are often called "anti-glycation agents". Some examples are Carnosine and Benfotiamine.

I've only scratched the surface here- there have been a lot of discussions about AGEs in these forums over the years that are still there, if you use the forum search tool (found under "Topic Search" in the left-side menu.

[nowayout]

Also, there's turnover in the collagen cells that support the skin. It's not a very fast turnover rate (~15 years), but if that is the case, then maybe I don't necessarily have to worry about the UV damage I suffered as a child, for example?

On the contrary, I am only now (in my 40s) seeing signs of damage that occurred when I was a child, despite taking care of my skin in the intervening years. Unfortunately UV damage can take many years to even show up, never mind reverse itself.

Edited by nowayout, 31 March 2014 - 12:26 PM.

[Brafarality]

Also, there's turnover in the collagen cells that support the skin. It's not a very fast turnover rate (~15 years), but if that is the case, then maybe I don't necessarily have to worry about the UV damage I suffered as a child, for example?

On the contrary, I am only now (in my 40s) seeing signs of damage that occurred when I was a child, despite taking care of my skin in the intervening years. Unfortunately UV damage can take many years to even show up, never mind reverse itself.

Don't despair...keep fighting the fight. It will pop up, but stay at it. Healthy diet, sensible sun avoidance, moderate exercise. You know, the basics, and that which you perceive may just pop out like the space slug in Empire that chomped at the Millennium Falcon only to slowly withdraw when it missed its mark. Much success.

[nowayout]

Also, there's turnover in the collagen cells that support the skin. It's not a very fast turnover rate (~15 years), but if that is the case, then maybe I don't necessarily have to worry about the UV damage I suffered as a child, for example?

On the contrary, I am only now (in my 40s) seeing signs of damage that occurred when I was a child, despite taking care of my skin in the intervening years. Unfortunately UV damage can take many years to even show up, never mind reverse itself.

Don't despair...keep fighting the fight. It will pop up, but stay at it. Healthy diet, sensible sun avoidance, moderate exercise. You know, the basics, and that which you perceive may just pop out like the space slug in Empire that chomped at the Millennium Falcon only to slowly withdraw when it missed its mark. Much success.

I have poikiloderma of Civatte (redness and pigmentation of side of head and neck) as a result of UV exposure (I assume). It is not something that reverses on its own but it seems to be treatable with high intensity pulsed light or laser, so I might look into doing that. http://emedicine.med...treatment#a1128