Divorce, Antidepressants, or Weight Change Ages You Faster
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free skin care · Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:37 pm

ASPS Twins Study Finds Environmental Factors Trump Genetics in Facial Aging

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. - Your mother's wrinkles - or lack there of, may not be the best predictor of how you'll age. In fact, a new study claims just the opposite. The study, involving identical twins, suggests that despite genetic make-up, certain environmental factors can add years to a person's perceived age. Results just published on the web-based version of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery?, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), reveal that factors like divorce or the use of antidepressants are the real culprits that can wreak havoc on one's face.

"A person's heritage may initially dictate how they age - but if you introduce certain factors into your life, you will certainly age faster. Likewise, if you avoid those factors you can slow down the hands of time," said ASPS Member Surgeon and study author Bahaman Guyuron, MD, professor and chairman, department of plastic surgery, University Hospitals Case Medical Center. "In this study, we looked at identical twins because they are genetically programmed to age exactly the same, and in doing so we essentially discovered that, when it comes to your face, it is possible to cheat your biological clock."

During the study, Dr. Guyuron and his colleagues obtained comprehensive questionnaires and digital images from 186 pairs of identical twins. The images were reviewed by an independent panel, which then recorded the perceived age difference between the siblings.

Results showed that twins who had been divorced appeared nearly 2 years older than their siblings who were married, single or even widowed. [b]Antidepressant use was associated with a significantly older appearance and researchers also found that weight played a major factor too. In those sets of twins who were less than 40 years old, the heavier twin was perceived as being older, while in those groups over 40 years old, the heavier twin appeared younger.[/b]

According to Dr. Guyuron, "the presence of stress could be one of the common denominators in those twins who appeared older." Additionally, researchers suspect that continued relaxation of the facial muscles due to antidepressant use, could account for sagging. And though they do not advocate gaining weight to look younger, researchers note that losing abnormal amounts of weight not only have harmful effects on a person's health, but on their appearance, too.

"This research is important for two reasons," Dr. Guyuron said. "First, we have discovered a number of new factors that contribute to aging and second, our findings put science behind the idea that volume replacement rejuvenates the face."

According to ASPS statistics, there were more than 1.5 million injectable filler procedures performed in 2007.

http://www.cosmeticsurgery-news.com/article3053.html

free skin care · Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:47 pm

Very interesting! Never thought about that sort of result of an antidepressant. And also surprised that the heavier twin tended to be the younger of the two after age 40 - maybe because of facial fat???? I've always thought the opposite would be true. Putting on weight seems to indicate middle age and beig trim more close resembling youth. But I guess they aren't really talking about a lot of weight - just not being scarecrow thing and emaciated. I know a little weight makes your hands look younger.

free skin care · Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:54 pm

At one time I worked in a Diet Center and pictures were taken before weight loss and after. Nine times out of ten with men or women over 40 they looked older after weight loss. I saw it over and over again. Now the sag in the skin does within about six months start shrinking but depending on the weight loss it may not all bounce back. However that is not considering facial exercises and now that we have that on our side we can beat the odds. I found it interesting when I started FE that a majority of people bought the program because they had lost weight and were dealing with saggy skin.
Toby

free skin care · Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:16 pm

I can definitely attest to the sag after 40....the 16 lbs I lost thus far appear to have come right off my face, and left serious sag behind, sigh. Thank goodness for Ageless and STOP.

My 41 y/o sister is very thin (size 0/2) and she is an example of someone who would look younger with some a little more facial fat. But she recently told me that you have to decide between a fatter body/nice face OR thinner body/aged face. She is opting for the latter and supplements with a boatload of filler. Rolling Eyes

free skin care · Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:12 am

From personal experience, i can definitely say that lifestyle factors affect your skin immensely.

I left my husband in August 2007 and we subsequently divorced. I'm still at my mum's house desperately trying to push a very slow house purchase through. Still living out of suitcases and half my stuff is in storage.

Since August 07, i can honestly say that i think i've aged about ten years. I've never had perfect skin or hair or figure, but always looked fairly youthful for my age (I'm 36 now). But i really noticed the difference - pale, grey, lacklustre skin, my hair has no shine, i've put on weight and finding it hard to get into an exercise routine. I have been quite shocked at the difference, it's really been noticeable.

Another thing i think contributes (certainly in my case) is how i view myself now. When married, my husband and i had a very active social life and a large crowd of acquiantences. Many were older, so i subconsciuosly felt "young". i dressed up at weekends, put on make-up, danced, ate, laughed, drank, wore up the minute clothes. My whole mindset was that i felt young.

I now have a new partner, whom i adore and love to bits. He has a 13 year old daughter who we have a lot of the time. So, now, weekends are spent with us all curling up on the settee watching dvds, walking the dog, going shopping etc. Don't get me wrong, i love my life now and wouldn't change it but i seemed to suddenly go over-night from feeling very young and youthful, to realising i am old enough to really be her mother and i'm assuming very much a stepmother role anyway. we rarely go out at night, i rarely dress up, i rarely put make-up on any more. So, my mindset has really changed. I feel a lot older now. So, i think circumstances contribute a lot - how you view yourself, how you hold yourself etc.

Once i'm in my new house, i am starting a new regime. I'll have full access to all my lovely clothes, all my lovely toiletries etc, i'll be in a proper routine and i'm determined to bring back the youthful, energetic gal i used to be!

Anyway, that's just my experience that i thought i'd share with you.

Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:37 am

Being happy seems to be a saviour.

I had a reasonable amount of medical treatment when I was 31- 32 and had a "fake menopause" induced by drugs for 6 months and I felt that really aged me. I lost a few pounds in weight and it came off my face never to be gained back on my face. My facial lines increased to. After that I ended up losing my ovary and tube etc and honestly feel that I havent been the same person since visually and mentally.

Ive never had brilliant skin but truly feel the above has made it worse.

free skin care · Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:06 pm

Are we to deduce that being off our meds and out of control is better for our faces??! Laughing

Ironically, my 90 year old mother has the skin of a baby even after raising a hellion like me. Maybe she just didn't let it get to her.

free skin care · Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:34 pm

I would imagine that they could add having kids to that list of thing that age you faster! Not that I am an expert.

free skin care · Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:41 pm

bugaboo wrote:

I would imagine that they could add having kids to that list of thing that age you faster! Not that I am an expert.

LOL...I can see where that definitely could be the case! And money too. I guess that all gets dumped into the Stress category.

free skin care · Tue Feb 17, 2009 9:21 pm

this is exactly why they say After 40 you have to choose between your face and your figure! (unless you have some EDS tricks up your sleeve) It IS about the fat stores in the face!

As for the anitdepressants - you'ld think they would correlate it to the drug RAVAGING your body, rather than relaxing your face muscles.

And for divorce - ya, it aged me mainly 'cause i lost alot of weight, which i didn't need to loose, but once i found facial excercise people were like Shock

wow - you look amazing -10 years younger - which made me feel kind of bad 'cause looking better was not due to my being out of my marriage, my x is a real sweetheart - i left 'cause i had a deep knowing...not 'cause i was miserable -

Teabags - you'll get your groove back and it'll be all the sweeter 'cause you lost it..

m

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:57 am

If both depression and taking anti-depressants are both bad for your face, it sounds like a lose lose situation. Personally, I believe that stress is responsible for just about all our ills.

Love the twin study concept though - wish they'd carry out these types of studies more often on all the beauty products and treatments. Just imagine all the twins of celebrities they're going to have to work with in about ten years time!

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:23 am

moongoddess wrote:

Teabags - you'll get your groove back and it'll be all the sweeter 'cause you lost it..

m

Ahhhhh, thanks hun! Very Happy

Yeh, my divorce hit kinda hard. It was my choice because he didn't want a family and i did. I couldn't bear to give up that dream. But he was still the great guy i loved and married, so it was really really hard. I cried for nights wondering if i had done the right thing (i am pretty sure i did, because i am now with a fab guy and TEN WEEKS PREGNANT!!!!!!).

As well as divorce, i had bereavement, miscarriage, finance worries, homeless etc causing me untold stress too! And i think a lot of it was my fault to a degree - because there was a period when i just couldn't be bothered and i kinda gave up wanting to make the effort to look good. Oh lord, how i miss that now!

So, yeh, watch out world ........ once i'm in my new home and my belongings out of storage, there's gonna be one hot sexy chick hitting the streets!!! Albeit with a bump!! Laughing

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:45 am

Keliu wrote:

Personally, I believe that stress is responsible for just about all our ills.

I totally agree with this. I think stress ages us faster, all the way around meaning internally and what we see on our faces.

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 8:13 pm

Yes..last year i had the most stress (that i couldn't yet internally handle) in my life that i ever had..and it aged me incredibly...

on the other hand i notice that when i am in an environment that supports my ability to internally handle stress ..i look really beautiful..so much softer and younger.

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 8:31 pm

bethany wrote:

I can definitely attest to the sag after 40....the 16 lbs I lost thus far appear to have come right off my face, and left serious sag behind, sigh. Thank goodness for Ageless and STOP.

My 41 y/o sister is very thin (size 0/2) and she is an example of someone who would look younger with some a little more facial fat. But she recently told me that you have to decide between a fatter body/nice face OR thinner body/aged face. She is opting for the latter and supplements with a boatload of filler. Rolling Eyes

I've heard that expression before... and I suppose there is something to it. It's nice to believe there is an in-between place; a balance between healthy/fit/more on the lean side Vs too thin or too heavy. Something that could suit both the face and the figure.

I can see that weight loss could cause sag in the facial area also... So...If you never had much variation in weight gain or loss - theoretically facial sag should be less of an issue.
I would say it effects the heavy and the very lean in different ways.

I've seen heavy people with very heavy faces and that tends to add to the substantial sag effect (as in too much fat) in the opposite way as a very thin person with little facial fat and looking gaunt with thin, loose skin.

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 8:36 pm

Because i'm slim..i find that if i include essential fatty acids..especially omega 3's..like chia seeds (since i'm a vegan)..it gives my face a plumper look without effecting my weight.

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:39 pm

bethany wrote:

I can definitely attest to the sag after 40....the 16 lbs I lost thus far appear to have come right off my face, and left serious sag behind, sigh. Thank goodness for Ageless and STOP.

My 41 y/o sister is very thin (size 0/2) and she is an example of someone who would look younger with some a little more facial fat. But she recently told me that you have to decide between a fatter body/nice face OR thinner body/aged face. She is opting for the latter and supplements with a boatload of filler. Rolling Eyes

Bethany your sister will need a couple of tankers full of fillers at fifty Laughing

Toby

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:57 pm

sister sweets wrote:

I can see that weight loss could cause sag in the facial area also... So...If you never had much variation in weight gain or loss - theoretically facial sag should be less of an issue.
I would say it effects the heavy and the very lean in different ways.

I think it also comes down to how quickly you lose it.

free skin care · Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:00 pm

Toby wrote:

Bethany your sister will need a couple of tankers full of fillers at fifty Laughing

Toby

No joke! But her husband's company has been hit very hard by the economic strain, and she actually has to skip her upcoming trip to NYC every 3-4 months for 2 days of treatments at a dermarologist to the stars. Maybe now she'll start listening to my cheaper options. Laughing

free skin care · Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:26 am

I'm surprised that, on this basis, they concluded that antidepressants contribute to sagging skin. Hard to imagine the mechanism, actually. If it is tht relaxation promotes sagging--a pretty far-fetched idea--then happy, relaxed people ought to have the most age-related sagging. Pretty silly once you think about it.

It seems that the more obvious correlation is between stress and skin aging--that people taking antidepressants have likely been under more stress due to underlying depression. But that conclusion--that stress can be aging--is much less newsworthy.

free skin care · Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:36 am

Perhaps there isn't a direct coorelation between taking the antidepressants, as much as having the NEED for them in the first place.

free skin care · Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:59 pm

Thought you all would find this interesting.

Found this response to the report Bethany submitted above:

by Dr. Mercola:

Interestingly, this article is published in the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), and the study’s author, Bahaman Guyuron, MD, is also one of their member surgeons, so the study may have some ulterior motives.

As Dr. Guyuron said, “Our findings put science behind the idea that volume replacement rejuvenates the face."

In other words, plastic surgeons can use the finding that fuller faces appeared younger after age 40 as “proof” that injectable filler plastic surgery procedures can make you look younger. Already, more than 1.5 million such procedures were performed in 2007, according to ASPS statistics.

But to me, the REALLY interesting part of this study has nothing to do with going out and having your face injected with fat in an attempt to look a few years younger. Instead, what struck me was the finding that your life experiences shape the look of your face as you age, far more than your genes do.

People who had been through the stress of a divorce looked nearly two years older than their married, single or even widowed twin. Those who used antidepressants also appeared significantly older. The researchers attributed this to the drugs causing continued relaxation of the facial muscles, which led to sagging, but it could also be that those taking antidepressants were under some type of psychological stress.

For those of you who are regular readers, you’ll know that this lends further credence to the emerging and incredibly interesting field of epigenetics, which centers around the notion that environmental factors such as stress and your diet influence the expression of your genes.

And it is the expression of your genes -- NOT the genes themselves -- that dictates whether you develop certain diseases or age prematurely.

How Stress Shapes Your Genes

Parents often joke about how their grey hairs all magically appeared after their kids were born. Likewise, if you’ve ever watched someone go through a divorce or other emotionally trying time, they can seem to age 10 years in a matter of months.

Even if you’ve faced just a few stressful days in a row, you’ll often be able to see it written all over your face.

These are prime examples of the toll stress can take on you physically.

As proven through the massive genetic study, the Genome Project, each one of your genes can create up to 30,000 proteins, any and all of which can create a different outcome. So the fact that you may have a genetic “predisposition” for facial wrinkles, for example, does not mean that you are doomed to develop a face full of wrinkles during middle-age.

There is something that either activates or suppresses your genes, and research by Bruce Lipton, PhD., a forerunner in the field of epigenetics and The New Biology, has shown it is often related to your mind.

In other words, whether you are mentally stressed or able to maintain a more positive outlook can influence the expression of your genes, and thus directly impact how you age.

Consider a study done back in 2001, which assessed how quickly the skin of medical students could recover from having a piece of sticky tape applied to it. What they found was skin recovery seemed to be directly linked to stress levels -- with high stress during exams associated with a decreased ability of the aggravated skin to return to normal function.

They concluded that stress lessens your skin's ability to function properly, heal wounds and fight disease, and could put you at an increased risk of skin diseases like psoriasis or dermatitis.

Meanwhile, scientific data has revealed that extended exposure to psychological stress could speed up the aging process of your cells and cause them to die at a faster rate than normal.

Taken as a whole, what this means is your body’s ability to resist and adapt appropriately to both internal and external stresses is essential for good health, and the hallmark of aging is your body’s inability to withstand stress, which then starts to degrade it.

The solution, therefore, to preventing premature aging and having a youthful appearance on the outside is to effectively deal with your stress, and teach your body how to best tolerate it. This is great news, as it means that you have the ability to directly influence the way you age, simply based on your mental outlook.

Top Tips for Effectively Dealing With Stress

The key is not getting rid of stress completely, as we all face stressful situations from time to time (even exercise is a form of stress), but rather adjusting your body’s ability to tolerate the stress. Here are my top tips for doing so:

• Release negative emotions with the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT, considered by many to be the ultimate stress-management tool, targets a person’s disrupted energy meridian system as the real driver behind heightened stress levels. This simple do-it-yourself acupressure technique balances your energy and eliminates your body and mind’s stress response.

• Exercise. Physical activity is an excellent way to relieve tension and ward off the physical consequences of stress. Studies have shown that during exercise, tranquilizing chemicals, endorphins, are released in your brain, making exercise a natural way to bring your body pleasurable relaxation and rejuvenation.

• Get plenty of sleep. Regularly catching only a few hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and hormone production in a way that is similar to the effects of aging and the early stages of diabetes. Plus, your body needs high-quality sleep to help it deal with stressful situations.

• Optimize your diet. Eating the right foods for your nutritional type can have a direct impact on your mood. It’s also important to get plenty of omega-3 fat, from fish oil or krill oil, as it can help to reduce psychological distress and depressive symptoms.

Omega-3 fats also help to normalize skin lipids and prevent dehydration in your cells. This keeps skin cells strong and full of moisture, which can help to decrease the appearance of fine lines.

What Else Can You do to Look Younger?

Focusing on the bright side of life is only one key way to keep a fresh, youthful appearance.

One of the most important strategies you can possibly do is to optimize your vitamin D levels by appropriate sun or safe tanning bed exposure. If this is not an option then taking an oral vitamin D supplement is the next best option. But if you take this route you must be sure and have your blood levels tested as there are simply too many factors to predict what the correct dose is unless you measure it.

Vitamin D controls about 2,000-3,000 of your genes and can radically improve every system in your body -- including your appearance. If you use the preferred UVB exposure to optimize your vitamin D levels you need to know that it is important not to overdo it. You only need enough exposure to turn your skin the slightest pink.

Additional exposure will not increase your vitamin D level but it will increase premature aging of your skin. So be careful and prudent out there.

As I said earlier, it is also helpful to pay attention to what you’re eating, and this one is so important it bears repeating. By consuming large amounts of whole, unprocessed, healthy raw foods that are loaded with antioxidants, you can help to slow down the speed at which signs of your real age show up.

In fact, one of the reasons I started vegetable juicing is that I would see 75-year-old women in my practice who looked like they were 40 years old with virtually no facial wrinkles. Most of them were doing large amounts of juicing and led healthy lifestyles.

Juicing is actually a great way to get more raw veggies into your diet, as long as you fine-tune your vegetable selections based on your nutritional type, and if at all possible, aim to buy organic, locally-grown vegetables that are in season.

It’s also important to cut back on sugar. Diets high in sugar increase free radicals and oxidative stress, and leads to signs of premature aging.

And the sooner you start to make these positive changes -- to your stress levels, mental outlook and your diet -- the better. Whether you’re young or old, this healthy lifestyle will help keep the signs of aging away, or at least slow them down considerably.

free skin care · Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:08 pm

Very interesting, thanks for posting that Sis!

free skin care · Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:00 pm

Has anyone heard or tried the Emotional Freedom Technique for relief of stress and negative emotions?

free skin care · Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:04 am

I had not until your article. But, I googled it, and there is a free download to "get you started" at this site: http://www.emofree.com/

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