Body lotions and Moisturizers: Are they effective in slowing the aging process?

Wrinkles, age spots, and dry spots can be some of the symptoms people start to suffer when the aging process starts affecting their skin. As we all know, the aging process can cause many changes in our bodies, including our skin, which can influence our looks and mood. In this article, we will explain how much body lotions can help you to regain your skin health and make you look younger. The aging process is a multifocal experience that affects the organs and the skin. As you get older, aging can cause that your skin starts to lose some of its healthy fats and elasticity making it look dryer, thinner, fill with wrinkles and age spots which can cause you some feelings of anxiety, stress, or frustration1. Since aging is a very natural process that is intimately involved with human nature which the reason why, over the decades, many anti-aging products have come out to the market praising to be the ultimate solution to make you look younger. 2. Skin aging prevention The appearance of aging signs in the skin such as wrinkles, age spots or dry spots is the consequence of many habits and factors inside and outside of our bodies, such as not drinking enough liquids or having a poor dietary regime, feeling stress or anxiety, having hormone problems, smoking and being exposing to high amounts of sun without proper protection. All these factors described above will have double harm on your body and overall health: decrease the elasticity and quality of your skin and tone and affect your body’s state by accelerating the manifestation of many other conditions or diseases. And that's because all the bits of advice the dermatologist have on taking care of your skin are indirectly related to the attention of your whole system: Protecting your skin from the sun by using a sunscreen every day can decrease the possibility of suffering from skin cancer, one of the most common cancer types just in the United States. Smoking, on the other hand, can cause the breakdown of collagen structure faster than it should while forcing your blood vessels to constrict, avoiding your skin to have the necessary oxygen and nutrients that it needs. Also, this habit can cost you some important cancer types such as lung and throat cancer. Alcohol also damages your skin by dehydrating it and dilating your blood vessels. It can also develop another type of conditions, such as cirrhosis syndrome. Yoyo dieting and eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia affect the elasticity of your skin, but also its natural glow and plump. These life-threatening conditions also stress and damage all your important organs, which are why it is important to get the right treatment for them. The conclusion is: by taking care of your skin, you will correct all other behaviors that are threatening your health, which will benefit you in the long term. Skin anti-aging tips To stop and reverse the aging process on your skin, dermatologists establish specific steps you have to follow to succeed. Skincare then is the number one step to start the anti-aging process, by recovering and maintaining a skin barrier that can rapidly respond against dehydration and the penetration of various agents that can affect it, such as allergens, radiation, microorganism, and many others. In this case, the skincare will act as a mechanism to stop and even reverse the aging process by the use of certain products that will increase the skin’s regeneration, elasticity, and smoothness. To begin with appropriate skin care, dermatologist suggests you start with the purchase of a good sunscreen and moisturizer. When choosing a sunscreen, make sure it’s from a broad spectrum, SPF 30 (or higher) and water-resistant. By combining a moisturizer – better if it's an anti-aging one – with proper sunscreen, you will assure to minimize some wrinkles and fine lines of your face, noticing significant advances by their use every day. Secondly, washing your face with a gentle cleanser and applying moisturizer at night can also help to stop skin aging. Use moisturizers with antioxidants and peptides such as green tea or grape seed extract, vitamins A, C, and E or even some retinoid formulas like Retin-A or Renova. Lastly, another way to improve your skin health and the anti-aging process is to incorporate in your daily dietary regime natural antioxidants such as vitamin C, vitamin E, carotenoids, copper, and selenium. Also, the combination of vitamin C with ferulic acid can create sunscreen protection and an antioxidant effect, as some studies assure. Ingredients in body lotions that will help you In the dermatology field, two main groups can be associated with proven benefits for your skin anti-aging process, which they have commonly used in body lotions components: antioxidants and cell regulators. The antioxidants, such as vitamins, polyphenols, and flavonoids, reduce collagen degradation while the cell regulators, such as retinol, peptides, and growth factors (GF), have direct effects on collagen metabolism and influence collagen production. Vitamins C, B3, and E are the most important antioxidants because of their capability to go through the skin. The first one (Vitamin C) has been proved that in concentrations between 5 and 15% will create an anti-aging effect by inducing the production of a specific type of collagen (Col 1 and Col 3) as well as enzymes responsible for increasing and stabilizing the production of collagen for the skin. Also, clinical studies have shown that the combination of Vitamin C and Vitamin E offers a more potent antioxidative protection that using each of them alone. Niacinamide(vitamin B3), the responsibility for regulating cell metabolism and regeneration, is active when used in 5% of concentration as an anti-aging agent. Vitamin A (retinol) and its derivates (retinaldehyde and tretinoin) are also a group of agents with antioxidant effects. The science has discovered that the Retinol has the most positive results for aging control in an extrinsic and intrinsic way – which is inside and outside of your skin – because it can effectively control the collagen metabolism while causing less skin irritation. Remember, not every skin is the same Even though these enriched products can be found in energy foods, vitamin supplements, and many body lotions and moisturizers, their only use can limitedly help you in your skin aging process. Aspects as your skin type, your aging skin concern – wrinkles, dry spots, white spots – and even your daily diet can affect positively or negatively the use of any skin aging agent.  Because of that, we strongly recommend you to seek the help of a specialized dermatologist regarding your skin integrity. And maintaining a good diet, to secure your overall health. References https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/skin-care-and-aging https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/wrinkles/in-depth/wrinkle-creams/art-20047463 https://www.webmd.com/beauty/features/wrinkles-skin#1 https://www.aad.org/skin-care-secrets/selecting-anti-aging-products https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16185284