ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 19 -- The entire body is subject to premature aging from cigarette smoking, irrespective of sun-exposure, researchers here found.
Smoking was second only to chronological age in predicting fine wrinkling of photo-protected skin, reported Yolanda R. Helfrich, M.D., of the University of Michigan, and colleagues in the March issue of Archives of Dermatology.
Controlling for age, years of hormone therapy for women, years of smoking, and hours of lifetime sun exposure, the "optimal model" for predicting inner upper arm wrinkling included only chronological age (P<0.001) and packs of cigarettes smoked per day (P=0.04).
"Cigarette smoking has long been investigated as a risk factor for premature skin aging," the researchers said. However, the focus on research has been primarily facial wrinkling with no scales available to measure photo-protected skin, they added.
So they took standardized photographs of the inner upper arm skin of 38 men and 44 women who were patients at a dermatology clinic. They then picked five illustrating varying degrees of fine wrinkling on which basis three blinded judges scored the rest of the photographs twice, one year apart.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/Smoking/tb1/5279
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