Free Radical Effects -

Skin Ageing and Radicals

Doctors have known for years that sunlight damages the skin. This was not especially clever as the evidence has been around for centuries. If you compare the skins of white people living mainly indoors with those of people who spend their days in the open, especially in tropical and subtropical areas, you will see that, while the former remain smooth and elastic, the latter become wrinkled, discolored and lax. Many sun-living people of European or American origin who live in hot areas suffer devastating skin damage, with drooping, sagging folds, extensive fine wrinkling, and a much higher than average incidence of the three common skin cancers: rodent ulcer ( basal cell carcinoma), squamous cancer ( squamous epithelium) and malignant melanoma.

The scientists have known for decades that this damage is caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. the most obvious effect of this radiation is on the elastic collagen protein of the skin which becomes reduced in quantity and altered in quality. The result is sagging and wrinkling and loss of support to the small blood vessels of the skin. The result is what is inaccurately called ‘ broken veins’ or telangiectasia – widening and conspicuous prominence of vessels that are normally too small to be seen. Skin specialists, recognizing that these changes are the result of light damage over long periods, call them photo-ageing.