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Smoking linked
with aging on skin that usually is
not exposed to sunlight... University of Michigan
Health System researchers find more wrinkles on
skin of smokers
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In classic movies, cigarette smoking was used as
shorthand to convey sultriness and beauty. In the real world, the
connection between smoking and one’s appearance – as many studies
have shown – has more to do with premature signs of aging and less
to do with glamour and refinement.
A new study from the University of Michigan Health System adds another
dimension to the link between cigarette smoking and skin damage. The
study suggests that smoking may be associated with a higher degree
of aging on areas of skin, such as that of the inside of the upper
arm, that are not normally exposed to sunlight.
“We examined non-facial skin that was protected from the sun, and found
that the total number of packs of cigarettes smoked per day and the
total years a person has smoked were linked with the amount of skin
damage a person experienced,” says Yolanda R. Helfrich, M.D., lead
author and assistant professor of dermatology at the U-M Medical
School. The study appears in the March issue of the journal Archives
of Dermatology.
The researchers developed a photonumeric scale that can be easily
reproduced by other medical institutions to measure
the degree of aging on patients’ skin. The
nine-point scale used information from photographs
of the inside-upper-arm skin of the 77 participants.
Two medical residents and a medical student were asked to look at the
photographs and assign a grade in which zero represented no fine
wrinkling and eight represented severe fine wrinkling. The same
three people reviewed photos of the participants one year later, and
the scores were used to determine the level of increase in the skin
damage.
Researchers also collected data about the participants from interviews,
such as their age, ethnicity, history of cigarette smoking, use of
non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, use of dietary or herbal
supplements, sun exposure, sunscreen use, tanning bed use and, for
women, how many children they had given birth to, hormone therapy
use and oral contraceptive use.
Among the people in the study who were current or former smokers, they
had smoked an average of about 24 years. In all, among participants
who were 45 years or older, the degree of skin aging was found to be
significantly higher in smokers than nonsmokers.
In the 45-65 age group, smokers had an average score on the photonumeric
scale of more than two, while nonsmokers had an average score of
less than one. In the 65 and older age group, smokers had an average
score of about six, while nonsmokers had an average score of
approximately four.
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In addition to Helfrich, authors were Abena Ofori, M.D.; Ted A. Hamilton,
M.S.; Jennifer Lambert, M.S.; Anya King, M.P.H.; John J. Voorhees,
M.D.; and senior author Sewon Kang, M.D., all of the U-M Department
of Dermatology; and Le Yu, M.D., now with Cedars Sinai Medical
Center in Los Angeles.
The study was supported in part by grants from the Babcock Endowment for
Dermatologic Research and the National Institutes of Health.
Reference: Archives of Dermatology, 2007; 143:397-402. |