August 20, 2006 What Is A Wrinkle Worth What is a wrinkle worth? Americans spend $50 billion a year on skin care products, more than $1.5 billion of that specifically to fight wrinkles with cosmeceuticals---cosmetic products that have a druglike effect. Some of those buying anti-wrinkle potions are as young as 20 years old. The appearance of the first facial wrinkle may be traumatic because it is a sign for all the world to see that one is losing youth. Advertisements and articles in print media and on the Internet constantly promote anti-aging products. Face it! Our society is obsessed with looking young. What really causes wrinkles? Skin is generally soft and elastic in youth, varying in thickness from about one-fiftieth of an inch on the eyelids to as much as one-third of an inch on the palms and soles. But the thickness of the skin declines by about 50 percent between the ages of twenty and eighty due to changes in collagen---one of two major proteins that form structural, or “connective,” tissues in the body. The other protein is elastin, and, as its name suggests, it is “stretchable.” Collagen represents 75 percent of the weight of the skin. It makes skin stronger than the other soft tissues, such as those of the intestines and liver. It is extremely tough and hard to bend, and in fact, takes ten thousand times its own weight to stretch collagen. Elastin, on the other hand, which is just a small part of structural tissue, stretches easily. The outside of the ear is largely elastin, whereas collagen is a major component of ligaments, muscles, tendons, cartilage, the cornea of the eye, heart valves and blood vessels. The skin begins noticeably to lose some of its elasticity and flexibility during the late thirties, at the same time becoming thinner. This is because, it is believed, the collagen becomes more rigid, stiffening as its molecules form unbreakable bonds with each other, a process known as cross-linking. Experiments have shown that the older the collagen, the harder it is to bend. Collagen is especially at work in a woman’s skin, which, although romantically touted to be softer than a man’s, is actually less stretchable and resilient, and it is thinner. This sex difference is attributed to an inborn tendency of a woman’s collagen to form those cross-linked unbreakable bonds earlier than a man’s skin. Thus, the observation that a woman’s skin ages more rapidly than a man’s. Another theory, however, is that the man’s skin doesn’t age as quickly as a woman’s because a man shaves every day, constantly removing the dead cells of the outer layers and keeping new cells forming rapidly. This is the reason the fruit acids (chemical peels) and other abrasives are promoted in anti-aging cosmeticeuticals because they remove the top layer of skin cells. The skin is actually made up of three layers. The first, the deepest, the subcutaneous, contains fat, blood vessels, and nerves. It acts as a link between the tissues covering underlying muscle and bone and the next layer of skin, the dermis. It also serves as a mattress for the dermis and the epidermis, the two outer skins. The cosmetic scientists are trying to affect the submerged cutaneous skin because it is a large factor in wrinkling. As we age, its fat lobules diminish and consequently the mattress doesn’t really support the other skin covers. The cosmetic scientists are also trying to affect the dermis, the middle layer of skin sometimes called the true skin. It varies in thickness and contains blood vessels, nerves, hair follicles, sweat glands and oil glands. While fruit acids were the new hot cosmeceutical not too long ago, the buzz word in anti-aging products today is “peptides.” Many new anti-aging creams contain the short-chain peptides---small protein fragments that may be absorbed in the top layer of skin. The claim is that peptides are able to increase the production of collagen. There are some reports that show there is increased collagen and elastic fibers and seem to lessen the appearance of wrinkles. Procter and Gamble has a product that contains a peptide chain that mimics the end of a collagen molecule. It reportedly stimulates TGF (Transforming Growth Factor) and helps the structure that supports the skin. Argireline is another peptide product another produced by Lipotec. An even newer attempt at fighting wrinkles coming on the market concerns the blue print for skin---one’s own DNA. Skin cells are swabbed from the cheeks, and the DNA in the cells is sequenced at a laboratory at the State University of New York At Stony Brook. Scientists then look for variations in the genes that are thought to direct the production of enzymes that degrade collagen and other materials in the skin. Thus, when the genetic variations are detected, theoretically, the ingredients that are best for a particular customer and her/his skin DNA, a tailor-made anti-aging product is formulated. In the meantime, Silab, a French ingredient maker, has launched Heliomoduline, an ingredient that is said to repair DNA through the stimulation of proteins that naturally exist in the skin’s dermal layer. The big wrinkle, however, is that the cost of these newer anti-aging cosmeceuticals are bound to be even more expensive than the current products. If you have really bought into the hype about wrinkles and aging and you feel you are doing something to preserve your youth, then the anti-aging cosmeceuticals may be worth it to you.
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