Skin elasticity: What is it and What makes it lose
Skin elasticity is crucial to a person’s skin appearance and age. Reading this article, you will know more about skin elasticity and its causes.
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What is Skin Elasticity
Skin elasticity is the ability of your skin to stretch and bounce back into place. Giving plump and healthy looking skin, it helps the skin maintain its shape, firmness, suppleness, and radiance. The elasticity of skin is determined by the presence of collagen and elastin. Collagen is an essential scaffold protein that gives smoothness and elasticity to the skin, and elasticity is a critical skin protein that combines with microfibrils to form elastic fibres which provide stretch and recoil to the skin) contained in the dermis (the middle layer of our skin. They are the fibres that made it possible for the skin to stretch and spring back into place.
What makes it lose
In general, the loss of skin elasticity can be identified into two main factors, ageing, environment, and lifestyle.
Ageing
As a person ages, collagen and elastin decrease, resulting in wrinkled skin with decreased elasticity. According to Baumann and colleagues, the ageing process is disruptive to the elastic fibre network, which will lead to reduced tissue compliance and rebound, structural damage, and impaired homeostasis. Ageing also affects levels of collagen and its production. Thus as collagen and elastin reduce, the skin loses its elasticity and will result in sagging skin and wrinkles.
Environment
Apart from ageing, environmental factors are able to lead to sagging skin as well. This is because collagen and elastin are located in the dermis layer of our skin. These proteins can be damaged by sunlight which contains ultraviolet (UV) rays. It is estimated that up to 90% of skin ageing, including skin elasticity loss, is caused by exposure to UV rays. Impacting collagen fibres and elastin fibres, UV light rays are harmful to the skin, resulting in premature ageing. To protect your skin from this risk, sunscreen protection should be applied daily to block UV rays from entering the skin.
Lifestyle
Smoking can lead to the loss of skin elasticity. Like UV rays, they are harmful to the skin and are able to accelerate ageing. Cigarette smoke is toxic to all of the body’s cells, leading to thinning of the skin, which will contribute to sagging and wrinkles.
Poor diet is another potential factor of ageing. A diet without major food groups can speed up the loss of collagen, resulting in premature ageing. Food that provides sources of important nutrients and components of collagen production such as amino acids, vitamin C, zinc, and copper should be consumed regularly to maintain collagen production and reduce collagen loss. Intaking supplement of the important components is also a method to help preserve the skin’s elasticity and prevent wrinkles.
Bibliography
https://phformula.com/all-about-skin/the-elasticity-of-the-skin/
