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Skin Aging and Health

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Textbook of Aging Skin

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Abstract

Skin aging research usually aims to uncover the causes of skin cancer and to improve the appearance of skin for cosmetic purposes. Skin aging could also offer a route to study systemic aging and health, for which the skin has a number of advantages such as its accessibility for measurement. However, this would partly depend on whether the biological mechanisms driving variation in human health also drive skin aging variation. Here, evidence is found that indeed some skin aging features associate with specific aspects of health (e.g., skin wrinkling and pulmonary disease), and perceived age, a measure of facial aging, consistently associates with survival and markers of systemic aging. Furthermore, as potential drivers of these links, lifestyle factors such as smoking, pollution, and diet associate with both advanced skin aging and disease. Hence, the study of skin and facial aging does offer a way to study systemic aging mechanisms, such as the effects of glucose, cortisol, IGF-1, estrogen, and cell senescence which associate with skin and facial aging features. However, pigmented spots associate with better metabolic health, obesity associates with reduced facial wrinkling, and sun exposure boosts vitamin D levels (essential for bone health) but drives advanced skin aging. Hence, while some variation in skin and facial aging mirrors systemic aging, other variations link inversely (i.e., advanced skin aging, better health). The causal mechanisms responsible for these links now need elucidating to enable the study of their mechanism of action in the skin and further the understanding of systemic aging and human health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unilever Research and Development, Colworth Science Park, MK44 1LQ, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, UK

    David A. Gunn

  2. The Danish Twin Registry and The Danish Aging Research Center, Department of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, 5000, Odense C, Denmark

    Kaare Christensen

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  1. David A. Gunn
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  2. Kaare Christensen
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Correspondence to David A. Gunn .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Miranda A. Farage

  2. Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

    Kenneth W. Miller

  3. Department Dermatology, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, San Francisco, California, USA

    Howard I. Maibach

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Gunn, D.A., Christensen, K. (2015). Skin Aging and Health. In: Farage, M., Miller, K., Maibach, H. (eds) Textbook of Aging Skin. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27814-3_172-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27814-3_172-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27814-3

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