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Aging News & Information
Senior Citizen Smokers Have More Skin Wrinkling
Where the Sun Don’t Shine
Cigarettes smoked, years of smoking
correlated with degree of skin aging
 March 19, 2007 – Senior citizens with a history of
smoking were found to have “significantly more” skin wrinkling than
non-smokers in areas of the body not regularly exposed to light, such as
the upper inner arm. The study in the March issue of Archives of
Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, suggests this indicates
an association between smoking and a higher degree of aging skin.
The features of skin aged by the sun and exposure
to light are well documented and include coarseness, wrinkling,
discoloration and a pale yellow tint, according to previous studies.
The progression of this type of aging can be
measured with photonumeric scales, which use standard photographs to
assign numbers that correspond to grades of severity.
However, no such scale exists for photo-protected
(not exposed to sunlight) skin in areas such as the buttocks and upper
arm. The principle sign of aging in this type of skin is fine wrinkling.
Yolanda R. Helfrich, M.D., and colleagues at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, used photographs of 82 healthy
participants’ upper inner right arms to create a nine-point scale on
which to grade aging of photo-protected skin as well as to analyze
factors that affect the degree of aging.
Participants ranged from age 22 to 91 and had an
average age of 56.1, were 46 percent male and 54 percent female, and
were all photographed in the same position by a professional medical
photographer.
Five photographs were selected from each individual
to be analyzed by three separate judges and graded for severity of aging
on a scale of zero (no fine wrinkling) to eight (severe fine wrinkling).
Interviews were conducted to obtain health and lifestyle information.
The three judges largely agreed on the grading
scale for each participant; the maximum range of difference in scores
for a single individual was less than one unit on the nine-point scale.
“These results indicate that this scale is an
uncomplicated evaluation system for the clinical investigator involved
in the assessment and treatment of photo-protected aging skin,” the
authors write.
“In this study examining non-facial,
photo-protected skin, we found that the number of packs of cigarettes
smoked per day, total years of smoking and pack-years of smoking [an
average of packs per day over the number of years were smoking] were
correlated with the degree of skin aging.
“After controlling for participant age and other
variables in a multiple regression model, we found that only packs of
cigarettes smoked per day was a major predictor of the degree of
photo-protected skin aging.”
“In participants older than 65 years, smokers had
significantly more fine wrinkling than non-smokers. Similar findings
were seen in participants aged 45 to 65 years,” they continue.
The process by which photo-protected skin ages, and
how smoking may affect that process, remains unclear. Additional
research is needed to shed light on independent risk factors for fine
wrinkles in this skin type, the authors note.
Editor's Note: This study was supported in
part by grants from the Babcock Endowment for Dermatologic Research and
the National Institutes of Health.
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