Environment & Your Skin

If you've ever had to slather on the moisturizer after a cross-country airplane flight or suffered a breakout while visiting a large urban city, then you know firsthand the way the environment can affect your skin.

It's never too late to quit smoking. Quit today, and your skin will show the health benefits tomorrow. Air pollution, the dry, recirculated air of an airplane, smoking and, of course, the sun are all enemies of skin health. They increase the production of free radicals, strip antioxidants from your skin and intensify the effects of aging. Smoking, for instance, constricts blood vessels, reducing blood flow to the skin. It also depletes levels of valuable antioxidant vitamins like vitamin A, increasing damage to the elastin, the elastic fibers in your skin that provide a healthy tone. Just the smoke curling up from the cigarette can damage skin as much as any other pollutant. In fact, studies find that people who smoke have significantly more wrinkles at an earlier age than those who don't. Of course, the greatest damage to your skin occurs from the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Over time, the sun, like smoking, damages elastin and collagen, leading to the formation of fine lines and wrinkles. Most of the damage occurs in your childhood years—it just doesn't show up until middle age.

And it's not just soaking up the rays on the beach that does the damage. Simply sitting near a window, driving your car and walking outside also expose you to the harmful rays of the sun, and these are all activities in which you're much less likely to wear sunscreen. No wonder, then, that skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with more than one million skin cancers diagnosed each year. Overall, one in six Americans will develop skin cancer at some point in their lives. The reality is that there is no such thing as a healthy tan—unless it's one that comes out of a bottle.

Read More
1. Eating a Skin-healthy Diet
2. Exercising
3. Protecting Yourself from Environmental Effects
4. Memorizing Five Sunscreen Facts
5. Understanding How Damaging Stress Can Be
6. Finding the Right Skin Care Professional