On
average, your epidermis (the outermost layer of skin)
regenerates every 27 days (14 days for a 20 year old,
37 days for a 50 year old)
This
process is most intensive at night, with cell regeneration
taking place 8 times faster between the hours of 2
and 3 a.m., than during any other time of day
As
the skin regenerates, it sloughs off dead cells amounting
to approximately one gram per day. During the average
lifetime, you will lose approximately 44 pounds of
skin.
There
are 3,900,000 cells per square inch of skin.
Your
skin is a major sensory organ and contains 32 feet
of nerves per square inch.
Your
skin has over 8 feet of blood vessels per square inch.
Your
epidermis accounts for only 10% of your skin mass.
Your
skin continues to grow after your muscle, fat, and
skeletal structures begin to deteriorate.
One
square inch of skin contains 95-100 sebaceous (oil)
glands, 9,500,000 cells, 650 sweat glands, and 65
hairs.
The
skin responds to five basic sensations: pressure,
touch, cold, heat, and pain.
Skin
varies in thickness from a twelfth to a fifth of an
inch.
Skin
is the thinnest on the eyelids and thickest on the
palms of the hands and soles of the feet.
Things
that adversely affect your skin include: excess of
heat and cold, pollutants (free-radical damage), UVA
and UVB sun damage, and smoking and intrinsic aging.
Sun
damage - average solar damage takes between 15 and
20 years to show the effects. Intense solar exposure
can cause visible damage even earlier.
We
receive more than 80% of damage from the sun be fore
the age of 18.
45%-50%
of all Americans who live to the age of 65 will develop
skin cancer at least once.
Smoking
- causes huge levels of free-radical damage. A single
puff contains one hundred quadrillion free-radicals
(more than one for every cell in the body). These
free-radicals bind to our proteins and fats, causing
tissue damage.
Alcoholic
Beverages - ingesting more than .08 ounces of alcohol
(a 16-ounce beer) can be deleterious and negate efforts
to treat or prevent wrinkles.
Your
skin begins to age when a person reaches 25, when
hormone levels begin to decrease. Moisture content
goes down, cell division slows, skin renewal decelerates,
and oil secretion declines. By the time we reach 60
years old, we are able to make only about one-half
of the necessary functional proteins we made when
we were 20.
In
addition to anti-aging skincare regimes, good nutrition,
water consumption, sunscreen, exercise, and adequate
rest act to counteract skin damage.
