Looking beautifully, young and attractive, having a healthy complexion is essential for almost every woman. We are constantly looking for and testing new cosmetics and if it was possible we would spend enormous amounts of money to improve the way we look, to have ideal skin and complexion.
What difference does it make, however, if many of these women still smoke cigarettes? If you smoke, all the beautifying treatments you spend so much time and money on, have little or no effect at all. None of the treatments are able to cure the damage which is caused by smoking. If we choose smoking, we choose action which is contradictory to our efforts aiming at remaining healthy, young and beautiful for a long time. From the outside, we try to supply our skin with the best nutritional components while at the same time we destroy the skin’s texture from the inside by smoking cigarettes. It is not possible to find good resolution to our skin problems if we concentrate on fighting the harmful effects without removing the negative cause first. Cosmetics have influence on the outer parts of skin mainly and their active components cannot reach the deepest layers of inner skin where the most serious damage caused by smoking takes place. In consequence, the negative effects of this damage can be seen on the outside of skin.
I am aware, of course, that after reading my article it hardly probable that many people decide to quit smoking immediately and the aim of my article is not to preach my readers, either. I only would like to make fully aware of the true consequences of smoking all these young women who decide to smoke cigarettes. It has been told and written so much in different media about bad influence of smoking on human health that there is no need to repeat these thing once more. I am interested mainly in giving the basic facts concerning the influence of smoking on appearance and functioning of our skin.
The threat of cancer or heart diseases is not enough reason for young people to stop smoking. They are convinced that these problems are the problems of older people not theirs. However, negative aspects of smoking can become visible outside much faster than it seems. In time the way our complexion looks is getting worse and worse. This problem concerns both men and women, although in women negative changes are noticeable sooner because they occur faster. This may be the crucial argument for all women who want to smoke.
It seems very advantageous for us that recently it has been written and told a lot about the negative aspects of solar radiation, for example UVA or UVB on our skin. On the other hand, smoking is as much harmful, if not more, to our skin as sunbathing without the use of UVA/UVB creams. Clinical tests which have been made for many recent years, have proved that the skin of a smoker is getting older faster than that of a non-smoking person. It has been shown, for instance, that the skin of forty-year-old people who have been smoking for years, may be as much destroyed as the skin of seventy-year-old non-smokers. Doctors call the type of changes that undergo inside human skin as “tobacco face” syndrome.
First of all, during the process of smoking there are produces huge amounts of so-called free radicals. They are very active elements which attack and destroy skin cells and this causes premature skin ageing. In every article, I have written, I tried to emphasize the idea of the sun protection, not only during the summertime but through the whole year round. The solar radiation may cause premature skin ageing because it generates the producing of free radicals to large extent. It is useless, though, to protect our skin with the help of UVA/UVB creams or antioxidants while, in the meantime, we continue smoking. In such case, smoking becomes even more treacherous than our exposure to the sunlight without any protection.
Smoking is also a habit which does a lot of harm not only to the person who smokes but to whoever comes around and is forced to breathe the smoke in. Free radicals are produced in our organism even when we breathe the smoke passively. The large amount of free radicals cannot be fought by even very strong antioxidants such as: bio-flavonoids, vitamin C, A or E, mainly because these are able to work only in the epidermal part of our skin. First of all free radicals make our skin loose its smoothness and elasticity, than they make wrinkles and brown speckles appear, skin becomes dry and corneous and finally, free radicals damage blood-vessels. Besides free radicals, during the process of smoking more than four thousand other extremely dangerous and toxic substances are being produced, e.g. tar, carbon dioxide, arsenide, prussic acid and lead. These toxic substances are responsible for lowering the level of vitamins A, C and E in our body. These vitamins, as we already know, protect our skin from the negative influence of free radical as well as make the skin elastic and stimulate its regeneration.
As a result of smoking, the microcirculation is disturbed, in blood-vessels in particular. You can say that skin cells are being suffocated by smoke which reduces the amount of oxygen in a human body and instead it increases the amount of toxic carbon dioxide. This is why so-called a “tobacco face” person looks tired, has got a grey complexion often with enlarged blood-vessels. Many of you may think then: “It doesn’t concern me. I don’t smoke a whole packet a day. Just two or three light cigarettes, that’s all.” However, while you smoke one cigarette you cause the contraction of your skin blood-vessels which lasts up to 90 minutes after you finish smoking. Therefore, a smoker’s blood-vessels can receive one fourth of blood less than a non-smoker’s. As a result, cells of the former reveal oxygen deficiency and the lack of nutritive components in them. In time, such a person’s complexion may loose its pink and healthy colouring and it may start looking pale, grey and poor.
Anaemic anoxia of the facial skin also disturbs the production of collagen and elastin fibres which are responsible for the skin elasticity. These fibres get partially damaged, which makes skin thinner, with some irregular callosities and deep wrinkles, especially around one’s mouth.
Smoking causes also some necrotic changes inside the skin, which means simply that many cells die and they cannot be regenerate or animate. During smoking the level of estrogens may be lowered, which has got a great impact on lowering the amount of collagen fibres and, in turn, on making the skin dry. In addition, smoking also disturbs the process of healing of wounds and injuries, making it slower and poorer.
Of course, smoking also causes many other negative changes inside an our bodies for instance, it limits blood-flow inside blood-vessels, it reduces the ability of blood to transport oxygen, it weakens the immunology system. All that damage becomes visible outside our body in the first place. Other negative effects of smoking on our look are: fragile nails, hair loss, and aggravation of many skin diseases such as: common acne, acne rosacea and often recurrence of psoriasis. Furthermore, we can observe yellow spots on nails, hands and teeth as well as worsening of sense of taste and smell.
Women who have been smoking for many years consult cosmetologists in order to find help with their look and skin problems. However, for those women who smoke the undertaken surgical intervention can never bring the satisfying effects. Therefore, plastic surgeons are unwilling to do any lifting or grafting for patients who smoke because their skin heals with much difficulty and it is very probable that some further complications will occur.
Girls think about this while you lit another cigarette, please!
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Tags: Anaemic anoxia, bad habit, bio-flavonoids, cancer, cigarettes, collagen fibres, damage blood-vessels, free radicals, heart diseases, Looking beautifully, microcirculation, quit smoking, Skin, Skin Care, skin elasticity, smoking, sun protection, tobacco face, toxic substances, UVA, UVB, vitamin C
