Smoking Adds Wrinkles to Sun-Protected Skin

Ivanhoe Newswire
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; 12:00 AM

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Want to keep your nice, smooth skin longer? Don't smoke.

According to University of Michigan researchers, smoking increases the fine wrinkling of skin not regularly exposed to the sun, such as the skin found on the inside of the upper arms or on the buttocks. Their study noted significantly more of this kind of wrinkling on photo-protected (not exposed to sunlight) skin in smokers older than age 65, and similar effects were noted for those between ages 45 and 65.

The researchers decided to study aging of nonfacial skin to see what might cause accelerated wrinkling on areas of the body that don't usually get a lot of sun. Using a technique similar to that used to study other types of aging, the investigators took medical photographs of the inside of the upper right arms of 82 healthy people between ages 22 and 91 and then had experts rate the photographs in terms of fine wrinkling.

The resulting scale is the first to gauge aging on areas of the body that don't receive much sun. "Using this scale, the degree of aging in photo-protected skin was significantly correlated with patient age and a history of cigarette smoking," write the authors. "Additional studies are needed to continue garnering information regarding independent risk factors for aging of photo-protected skin."

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SOURCE: Archives of Dermatology, 2007;143:397-402