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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Skin becomes more fragile and less resilient to damage as it ages. New be research suggests there may a way to improve the function of aging skin, at least in certain areas of the body.
All skin undergoes a natural aging process, but skin that is exposed to sun typically experiences signs of aging faster because of a process known as photo-aging. Natural aging and photo-aging share several biochemical features, including a reduction in collagen -- a major protein found in the skins inner layer.
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Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School treated elderly patients with both naturally aged skin and photo-aged skin with the hormone estradiol for two weeks to study its ability to increase collagen production. Study participants received estradiol topically on sun-protected skin near the hip, and also on sun-exposed skin on the forearm. Researchers found that applying estradiol to areas of skin that were protected from the sun and naturally aged helped stimulate production of collagen -- especially in the women studied. However, the same effect was not seen in sun-exposed areas of the skin that had undergone photo-aging.
Because photo-aging is superimposed on natural aging in sun-exposed areas of the skin, our results suggest that alterations induced by long-term sun exposure hinder the ability of topical estradiol to stimulate collagen production in aged human skin in vivo, study authors wrote.
SOURCE: Archives of Dermatology, 2008;144:1129-1140
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