Sun or photo-damaged skin is a surefire way to put you at risk of skin cancers and premature aging. We do an awful lot of "preaching" when it comes to protecting your skin from sun's damaging rays, recommending that you use a broad spectrum sunblock daily (even in winter months), stay out of the sun during the times of the day when the rays are really strong (10 am -2 pm), using reflective, light colored clothing as an additional barrier, and so on.
Some of us do already have photo-aged skin and can suffer with discolorations, wrinkles, loss of collagen. So what's available to treat the skin and to possibly undo some of those undesired side effects of sun exposure? Well, retinoids like Retin-A and Renova can help. According to some recent studies, so can laser treatments. In fact, the more damage- the better the results, in some cases. Photodynamic therapy which involves use of a topical cream (5-ALA) and then applying pulsed dye laser to those areas with the cream increased collagen levels and produced other skin changes that improved the skin's appearance. The study actually noted that pro-collagen (several diferent types) peaked with improvement one month after the treatment.
The test was only performed on forearm skin, so the hope is to now test and see if the same safe and beneficial results can be replicated in facial skin.......I'm ready!!!
Catch my new weekly radio show, HealthBeat on Voice America, Wednesday ams at 10 PST. You can listen direct from your computer.
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