Symptoms of sun damage include freckling, mottling, "age" spots, wrinkles, dryness, and precancerous or cancerious tumors. The effect on looks is one of aging-or worse. Both President Reagan and Vice-President Bush had brushes with basal cell carcinomas, which are directly related to sun exposure in years past.
Now sophisticated sunscreens and consumer awareness can prevent these nasty problems from popping up later. But what about those of us for whom this information has come too late?
Until now the answer wasn't good. What was done, to paraphrase Lady Macbeth, could not be undone. Sun damage, which dermatologists also call "photo-aging" because the sun's rays actually speed up the aging process in the skin, was considered irreversible. It is not that such damage plays out in tandem with the inevitable aging process, but rather that bright sunlight actually speeds up the process of aging in the skin.
Late this spring, however, the man many dermatologists consider the "father" of dermatology, Dr. Albert, M. Kligman, M.D., director of the Clinic for Aging Skin at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, announced that a substance in the retinoid (vitamnin A acid) family, used by dermatologists for treating acute acne, provided some success in actually reversing and even preventing such photo-damage.
A pioneer in using vitamin A acid to control acne, Dr. Kligman pursued the possibilities of expanded use in a recent study of middle-aged, light-skinned women with some evidence of sun damage. He and other researchers in this area came up with their conclusions based on measured results.
Retin -A, a synthetic form of vitamin A acid, benefited the skin on the deepest layers of the dermis by causing the formation of new cells and speeding up the process of turnover at the skin surface, as well as increasing blood flow and the number of blood vessels. The application of Retin-A enhanced collagen synthesis, thus restoring the elasticity in the skin that delays wrinkling.
For three months, the women in the study applied Retin-a to one arm and a nonmedicated cream to the other. Measurements at the end of this period indicated that treatment reached deep into the layers where ultraviolet rays had done their worst damage. One 38-year old woman of Irish descent had what dermatologists call actinic keratosis-disfiguring "age" marks on her face. After eight weeks of Retin-A treatment and four months of follow-up, she found herself nearly free of all blemishes. Another woman, looking far older than her 41 years, reduced wrinkling and mottling around her eyes and cheeks by at least 50 percent.
There are moisturizers on the market that claim to be wrinkle removers, but most of these produce, at best, shortlived results in smoothing out wrinkles.
In addition, the study found that retinoic acid might be used to eradicate precancerous lesions common to middle-aged and older people who spent too much time in the sun in those days when youth felt as though it would go on forever.
"This is not a miracle cure," Dr. Kligman stresses, nor is it an elixir for
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