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Does Light Therapy Work for Acne?

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We tend to think of acne just being a teenage thing. Often it is, but it can persist right through to old age. Most of us worry about wrinkles, but most acne sufferers would probably trade a few wrinkles for a skin free of acne.

Though I had bad pimples in my teens, fortunately I didn’t develop acne.

However, one of my coworkers (who is 48) has bad acne and is always trying to find ways to deal with it. Over the years we have worked together, they have tried pretty much everything – antibiotics, benzoyl peroxide, retinoids – you name it.

Recently, they tried light therapy and we all noticed the improvement. So certainly in this case, the answer as to whether it works, is a definite yes.

Light therapy is very appealing since it does not involve medications and you can do it at home. Plus it is totally painless and has no side effects.

Light therapy was originally developed by, and is still used by, the military to aid in wound healing. It was later discovered that it can be quite effective for acne.

If you are interested in finding out more about light therapy for acne, the products available etc., a really good site is http://acne-light.com.

If you, your kids, or others in your life have acne, it is certainly worth checking out light therapy.

photo credit: Caitlinator

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By | Posted in Skin | Tagged acne, ageing, light therapy, Skin | Comments (0)

Fear Of Falling Can Lead To Falling

Many elderly are frightened of falling. With aging there are increasing worries about not having good balance, tripping and breaking bones.

However new research suggests that the level of worry relates to the actual likelihood of falling. The fear of falling may be a stronger predictor of falling than actual physical condition.

In other words, the more worried you are about falling the more likely you are to fall.

When you think about this it is human nature. For instance, I am not very good at downhill skiing, and hence am not very confident. Many times when I think, “Oh no, I am going to fall”, I just fall over. On the other hand I am much more confident on a mountain bike. It is not often that I think, “Oh no I am going to fall”, instead on rough spots my attention is on trying get through the uneven area rather than thinking I am going to fall.

So we all need to start building confidence about balance as well as muscle strength to make ourselves less likely to fall.

For more information about balance see the page about balance and aging. Find out how to get and keep your sense of balance. Plus having strong muscles particularly in the legs help with confidence as we feel that we are not as likely to fall. You can reverse the loss of muscle that tends to happen with aging; see sarcopenia: effect on aging muscle and what you can do about it.

Increasing our sense of balance and muscle strength will help confidence to lower the risk of falling and will actually physically make you less likely to fall. A win-win situation. Keep (or develop) a good sense of balance and have wider horizons and greater mobility when you are older.

photo credit: anna gutermuth

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By | Posted in Body, Brain/Mind | Tagged ageing, Aging, confidence, elderly, fear of falling, sense of balance | Comments (0)

Fiberceutic: My Hair Wants & Needs It

Particularly if you have thin hair, like I do, Fiberceutic may be a huge help with making hair stronger and thicker – I really hope it is. Fiberceutic is either available, or soon to be available, in parts of Europe, but not as far as I am aware in the US.

Fiberceutic is a new system from L’Oreal that makes your hair stronger, more resistant to breakage with more volume and thicker. Sounds like a dream come true!

What is Fiberceutic?

Fiberceutic is a two step treatment.

After towel drying hair, the first stage a “hair filling treatment” is applied and left on the hair for several minutes.

The first stage contains Intra-Cylane^® which penetrates the hair and forms a network. This network strengthens hair by toughening itr and filling in any gaps in the cuticle of the hair. It also also increases the volume of hair, making the hairs plumper.

The second stage is a sealer. There are different sealers for thin and thick hair.

The effects are supposed last up to 10 shampoos.

This should be help anybody with thin hair at any age, but may be helpful for aging hair of any type, as hair gets thinner and weaker with aging.

(I just did a search and found that Redken is also developing a treatment system using Intra-Cylane^®. It has more steps than the L’Oreal system and you also are supposed to use weekly at-home treatments. Sounds like it will cost more than the L’Oreal. My Mum, who is the UK where it will be released in September, told me that the L’Oreal system will cost £15 which is about $23.)

I really hope it works and is not just more hype.

photo credit: kevinspencer

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By | Posted in Life | Tagged ageing, Aging, Fiberceutic, hair, hair filling, Intra-Cylane, L'Oreal, strengthen hair, thicken hair | Comments (0)

A Bad Childhood Can Make You Age Faster

When it comes to aging there are some things we can control and others that we cannot.

The most obvious factor that we cannot change is our genetics. We (usually) are not able to change the genes that we are born with.

Factors that affect how we age that we can control include things like stopping smoking, eating healthy diet, taking care of our teeth and gums, and a range of lifestyle choices.

Another factor, which we have no control over, and seems to affect how well we age, is abuse and adversity in childhood. In addition to direct abuse the other forms of adversity were loss of a parent, serious marital problems between parents, or mental illness or alcoholism within their family.

Researchers have found that those subject to serious abuse or other adversity have weakened immune systems later in life.

Further, that lifespan could be shortened by 7 to 15 years.

In the study, nearly one-third of the people said they’d experience some form of physical, emotional or sexual abuse during childhood. “Those who said they’d either been abused or suffered adverse experiences as kids showed higher levels of IL-6 (a stress marker) than did those who didn’t.”

The study also found that those who had had two or more kinds of adversity as children had shorter telomeres. Telomeres are special regions at the ends of chromosomes (our strings of genetic material) and it has been shown that the amount of shortening is related to aging. (See exercise may keep your cells younger for more information about telomeres.)

This research suggests that those who had a bad childhood should especially benefit from healthy lifestyle choices to compensate for their early adversity.

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By | Posted in Aging | Tagged ageing, Aging, anti-ageing, anti-aging, telomere shortening, weak immune system | Comments (0)

Light Weights May Be More Effective At Building Muscle

The need to keep muscle strength is being emphasized more and more. Getting and keeping strong muscles is important for all adults of all ages. It is one of the keys to being able to easily keep doing things when elderly.

A thing that puts people off lifting weights is that we are told that the benefits only come with heavy weights. The dogma has been that using light weights is close to a waste of time.

Now new research suggests that light weights may be more effective at building muscle. The researchers found that light weights with more repetitions can be very effective for building strength and even have certain advantages.

In the study, men either lifted either 30% or 90% of their best lift.

The men lifted the weights until muscle fatigue and failure occurred. In other words they kept lifting the weight until they could no longer lift the weight through the full range of motion. Of course it took more repetitions for the lighter weight.

Analysis of muscle of the participants showed that there was more protein synthesis in muscles that had lifted light weights. This increased level of protein synthesis in muscles suggests that that light weight (but longer duration) might actually be the best for building firm and strong muscles.

This finding suggests an alternative method of training for anybody who wants to increase muscle strength, might be to use lighter weights. The only downside of the light weight method is that working out is going to take quite a bit longer. Perhaps a mix and match approach might be the best.

Using light weights may be particularly useful for the frail elderly, and those that have lost muscle strength due to illness or an accident. The use of light weights is much more practical and probably safer for those who are trying to strengthen very weak muscles.

photo credit: jontunn

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By | Posted in Body, Exercise | Tagged ageing, Aging, anti-ageing, anti-aging, building muscle, light weights, muscle strength, protein synthesis, sarcopenia | Comments (0)

Social Rejection Increases Inflammation And Risk Of Many Diseases

Everybody feels stress and we all have periods of time that are more stressful than others.

Additionally, it often seems to be that when we are under the most stress that our health seems to get worse. This is thought to be due to the effects of stress on the immune system.

New research suggests that how your brain responds to social stress, particularly social rejection, also influences the immune system is affected.

Researchers found “that individuals who exhibit greater neural sensitivity to social rejection also exhibit greater increases in inflammatory activity to social stress.”

Test subjects had brain imaging to determine the level of activity of areas of the brain under stress. Mouth swabs were also taken to determine levels of representative markers of the immune system. Greater brain activity was associated with higher levels of inflammation.

Though inflammation helps the body deal with infections etc., it is known that frequent or continual stress can lead to an increased risk of a range of diseases including heart disease, stroke, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and even depression.

This research suggests that those who most strongly feel social rejection may have an increased risk of diseases that have a strong inflammatory component.

So how did they set up social rejection in the tests?

Here is one way. Volunteers (?!) had to prepare and perform a spontaneous speech and do difficult mental arithmetic problems, in front of a panel of people wearing white lab coats who were trained to rate the volunteers in a socially rejecting way.

I hope they paid them a lot to participate in the tests. It must have been a pretty awful experience.

photo credit: Kevin Krejci

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By | Posted in Brain/Mind, Health, Heart | Tagged brain activity, chronic inflammation, heart disease, immune system, social rejection, stroke | Comments (0)

Active Heart = Younger Brain?

Now more evidence that what is good for your heart is good for your brain.

As we age our brain shrinks and generally starts to show signs of aging. Signs of brain aging can be easy to determine such as occurs in Alzheimer’s disease, or it can be more subtle both in physical changes in the brain and in mental function.

A new study has related the efficiency of the heart to brain health.

Using participants in the Framingham study they compared the MRIs of their brains and hearts. The study group contained 1,504 people from ages 34 to 84, and 54% were women. None of the participants had a previous diagnosis of stroke, including a transient ischemic attack, or dementia.

To standardize heart output (how much blood the heart pumps) to body size, the data was adjusted for measured surface area of the body.

The participants were divided into three groups according to adjusted cardiac output.

Some of those in the lowest group had been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease but others had not.

The group that had adjusted heart output was judged by MRI of the brain to have the two more years’ worth of brain aging as compared to those with highest adjusted cardiac output.

The increased brain aging in the lowest output group applied to both those who had been diagnosed with heart disease and those who had not.

This study indicates that a heart that pumps well may mean that your brain does not age as fast.

Further, even if you do not have the symptoms of heart disease that you could have a heart with a low output. This is probably more evidence that an exercise program has multiple ways in which it can slow aging.

photo credit: lululemon athletica

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By | Posted in Body, Brain/Mind, Exercise, Health, Heart | Tagged active heart, ageing, Aging, anti-ageing, anti-aging, brain aging, cardiac output, healthy heart, younger brain | Comments (0)

Resveratol: Anti-Aging, Antioxidant & Anti-Diabetes?

Interest in resveratrol has waned a bit.

When research first showed that it extended life in organisms like yeast and the fruit fly (Drosophila), it was everywhere. Plus it didn’t hurt that one source is red wine.

Though it is clear that resveratrol has a range of benefits in many organisms, evidence in humans has been harder to come by. For one thing human live a long time, it is much easier to study aging in an organism that live days or months.

Plus recently acai seems to have replaced resveratrol as the “magic” cure for aging and whatever else you feel needs fixing.

Now new research shows that resveratrol does have a positive effect in humans. The study in humans demonstrates that resveratrol seem to be anti-inflammatory.

In the study half the participants were given resveratrol and the other half an identical looking placebo. After 6 weeks “Results showed that resveratrol suppressed the generation of free radicals, or reactive oxygen species (ROS), unstable molecules known to cause oxidative stress and release proinflammatory factors into the blood stream, resulting in damage to the blood vessel lining.”

Further TNF alpha activity was lowered. TNF alpha is involved in inflammation of blood vessels and the activity of insulin, which increases insulin resistance and hence the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

So if lower levels of oxidative stress and a decreased risk of developing insulin resistance prolong life then resveratrol does have an anti-aging effect.

The capsules used in the study were a Polygonum cuspidatum (Japanese knotweed) extract containing 40 mg of resveratrol, which was 20% of the total amount in the capsules, taken once per day for 6 weeks.

The researchers do point out that since the capsules were not pure resveratrol that is possible that something else in the extract was responsible for part or all of the effect seen.

photo credit: Mr. T in DC

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By | Posted in Diabetes, Health, Heart | Tagged ageing, Aging, anti-ageing, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, Diabetes, free radicals, inflammation, insulin resistance, Japanese knotweed, Polygonum cuspidatum, reactive oxygen species, red wine, resveratrol, ROS, TNF alpha | Comments (0)

Are Those Anti-Aging Products Real?

Not only is there the problem of whether anti-aging products actually work, there is the problem of counterfeiting.

Just saw a news article that EU (European Union) Customs seized close to 5 million counterfeit “personal” products in 2009.

The products included skin creams, body lotions, hair care, perfumes, toothpaste, etc. The majority of the products were higher end products.

If the EU seized about that huge number, how many got through? I think what they catch is the tip of the iceberg. How about the US and Canada? The numbers are mind boggling.

It makes you wonder how many of the products that we use are genuine.

Even if that anti-aging potion really works, how do you know that the container you bought, really contains those magic ingredients?

photo credit: sunshinecity

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By | Posted in Skin | Tagged ageing, anti-aging products aging, counterfeit, skin creams | Comments (0)

Sun Monitors To Avoid Sunburn

Recently there have been a number of products launched that tell you the time in sun indicate the amount of UV irradiation. The direct measurement of the UV index makes it easier to tell how much sun you can get. The UV index varies with time of year, latitude, altitude, and local conditions such as cloud cover and pollution levels.

They UV monitors are divided into two types bracelet monitor and the meter. I checked out Amazon to see the most popular types. You can click on the images to take a look on the site.

Sunsense Wrist Bands -In a clever twist you apply your sunscreen on the band as well as yourself. When the color changes you are supposed to apply more sunscreen or get out of the sun. Unlike the UV monitors the bands do not compensate for your skin types, tell you the UV index or indicate the level of protection that you need. However they attached to you wherever you go and would be ideal for kids.

The package contains 7 wristbands and at current cost of $6.98 (eligible for Free Super Saver Shipping). I am assuming that they are one time use. The reviews on Amazon are mixed. Some people seemed to have trouble with the instructions. Two said they did not work for them.

The Q3 UV HAWK 2 Sunlight Meter with Waterproof Design directly measures amount of UV. The unit will tell you what SPF to apply for the local UV intensity and your skin tone.

It has a timer with an alarm to tell you to reapply sunscreen or get out of the sun. Small and lightweight, 2.3″ x 1.2″ x 0.5″ and 2 oz with a wrist strap.

This monitor currently costs $25.99 (with Free Super Saver Shipping). Available as a 6 pack, but cheaper to buy 6 of the single units. One very glowing review.

Oregon Scientific EB612 Personal UV Monitor with Exposure Timer is another UV monitor that in addition to monitoring UV intensity, will determine, for your skin type, the SPF of the sunscreen you should be using, and a timer for how long you can stay in the sun. Does not appear to waterproof.

In addition to a countdown timer it has a digital clock, monitors the current temperature and has a wrist strap.

Current price is $ 17.95 (eligible for Free Super Saver Shipping). Reviews pretty positive.

Now you have no excuse for getting burned.

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By | Posted in Skin | Tagged anti-ageing, skin anti-aging, skin type, SPF, sun monitors, sunburn, Sunsense wrist band, UV, UV monitor | Comments (1)

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Does Light Therapy Work for Acne?

Fear Of Falling Can Lead To Falling

Fiberceutic: My Hair Wants & Needs It

A Bad Childhood Can Make You Age Faster

Light Weights May Be More Effective At Building Muscle

Active Heart = Younger Brain?

Resveratol: Anti-Aging, Antioxidant & Anti-Diabetes?

Are Those Anti-Aging Products Real?

Sun Monitors To Avoid Sunburn