'One of those moments that we live for in science': UBC researchers may have stumbled upon the secret to youthful skin
Stephen Williams stashed this in Medicine
Source: http://www.theprovince.com/news/those+mo...
“About 80 to 90 per cent of visible skin aging is caused by sunlight,” said Granville. “We found that by knocking out this gene we could markedly protect against the loss of collagen and it prevented wrinkling in these mice.”
Granzyme B breaks down proteins and interferes with the organization and the integrity of collagen, dismantling the scaffolding — or extra-cellular matrix — that cells bind to. This causes structural weakness, leading to wrinkles.
Sunlight appears to increase levels of the enzyme and accelerate its damaging effects.
Granville envisions cosmetic uses for his discovery in the prevention and repair of sun-damaged skin.
Stashed in: Outdoors, Science!, Longevity!, Medicine, Chocolate!, Aging
Yay Canada! Pretty cool. For some reason, my skin doesn't seem to be aging visibly at all, yet, even though I've been outside running, hiking, etc. plenty. If anything, I have to manage too much collagen if I get a minor injury or irritation. And I produce far more oil than I will ever need. I chalk it up to running, limited alcohol, and no smoking. I also never drank coffee at all, or much tea for that matter, but hard to tell if that matters. The hierarchy is definitely: no smoking, running, non-alcoholic. Hopefully chocolate is a positive. ;-)
Rarely, soda. About 2-4 sodas a month maybe, at restaurants. Although some of the time I choose caffeine free rootbeer. About the only reliable source of caffeine is in chocolate. I have periods of chocolate every day, then months of almost no chocolate. As far as I can tell, caffeine has no effect on me. In the past, when I had to drive 500 miles each way every other weekend to visit my children, and I was working long hours at AOL, I tried caffeine pills to stay awake. Made little or no difference.
That's cool. I was wondering if caffeine is bad for the skin. Your anecdote supports this.
More on the accidental stopping of aging:
http://geek.com/science/255516-scientists-accidentally-stop-skin-aging-in-mice
More conversation about it:
http://pandawhale.com/post/55403/scientists-accidentally-stop-skin-aging-in-mice
Same thing, different article. I'm fascinated by this and was looking for more information.
The finding about skin aging comes out around the same time artificial skin has been vastly improved:
http://pandawhale.com/post/55222/artificial-skin-that-senses-and-stretches-like-the-real-thing
12:26 AM Dec 17 2014