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[music] Hello, I’m Dr. Neal Schultz
[pause]
and welcome to DermTV.
There are really two main causes of lines and wrinkles. Most of us are
familiar with photo-aging which causes lines and wrinkles from repeated
unprotected exposure to the sun and that causes collagen and elastic tissue
in the skin to break and that causes lines and wrinkles. But what most
people don’t realize is that another cause of loss or breakage of collagen
and elastic fibers is repeated motion of the skin, repeated creasing and
folding such as frowning, smiling and squinting. All of these things fold
the skin back and forth- fold the collagen back and forth and causes it to
break. Let me give you some examples, this is a flat piece of paper without
any folds and I am going to fold it, and I press on that and now I’m going
to fold it again and move my finger back and forth several times. If I open
it you can see a fold or a crease. Let me try to rub out that fold or
crease. And what happens? You still have a fold, you still have a crease.
And the reason is, in folding that repeatedly I’ve actually broken the
cellulose fibers that form the structural integrity of the paper. Well, if
paper has cellulose fibers to give it integrity our skin has collagen which
gives it structural integrity and as a result of repeatedly folding the
skin or creasing the skin whether it’s frowning or smiling, anything that
does that will ultimately break the collagen fibers and therefore cause the
same kind of line or wrinkle. So, think of this paper clip as a collagen
fiber. What happens if we fold this paper clip back and forth, back and
forth? Well after enough folds back and forth it breaks. And that’s why
next to my eye I have a fine line; it’s etched there as a result of the
complete destruction of some collagen there. But skin unlike paper, skin
also has elastic fibers in it, and the function of elastic fibers is to
restore the shape of the skin to its natural shape. So if I take my face
and I stretch it out, the elastic fibers are what brings it back. But if
you repeatedly stretch elastic fibers back and forth after a while they get
stretched out and broken. So now there are folds in this elastic band that
just don’t come out because they’ve been broken. Let me give you another
example of this. This piece of paper has no folds, it’s in perfect shape.
But if you fold back and forth with the elastic, after a while, you can’t
get it to stretch out- it’s deformed. And one of main differences between
paper and human skin, well human skin we’re accustomed to repairing itself
but actually once you’ve broken collagen the skin can make a little more
collagen but it doesn’t do it very well. And even worse, once you’ve broken
elastic tissue, any time the skin makes new elastic tissue it never works
properly. So if you need any more convincing of the value of repetitive
folding of the skin in causing lines and wrinkles take a look at the upper
lip of somebody who has smoked for ten or twenty years and I can promise
you that you’ll see these vertical lines etched into the upper lip as a
result of smoking.