Anti Aging Products: Vital Ingredients

Vanity plays a large part in the use of popular anti-ageing skin care products and treatments; there is nothing wrong with wanting to continue looking young as you get older, in fact it is quite a healthy aim. Skin is important so a great deal of effort goes into the preparation of beauty products especially those that increase the production of collagen, which is the primary protein in skin; collagen is so abundant, it makes up about a quarter of the total protein content of structural protein found in skin. This area of anti-ageing treatments is connected to another group of products that help people to look young; this group is called antioxidants which are natural chemicals found in many foods and our body.

Probably the best known of these anti-oxidants is vitamin C although no-one really knows just how much we should have each day. The problem with vitamin C derived skin care treatments is they can become oxidized when exposed to the atmosphere, often even before they are used.

To get around this some skin care treatments are based on derivatives of vitamin C, which are more stable and less expensive. These new anti-oxidant products are not quite as good as vitamin C although other naturally occurring compounds, vitamin E and lipoic acid can achieve the same effect.

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble antioxidant and is found in human blood; it helps build resistance against infection like cancer for example. Another of these is lipoic acid which is found in every cell of our body to help generate energy for us to live; it is also able to help reduce and restore the skin's aging process.

Phytochemicals aren't produced by the body but are extracted from a number of plants and used in many anti-ageing skin care products to combat the signs of ageing. Phytochemicals prevent occurrence of certain types of cancer; for instance:

*Cancer that attacks the Prostate

*Cancer of the Breast

*Cancer of the Colon

These are some of the most common (and increasingly so) cancers in the world today.

Some B-vitamins like B5, B6 and B12 are also in use for anti-ageing skin care products. The use of anti-ageing skin care products is a huge scientific field to research and has far greater potential than just producing goods that reduce the visible signs of age. Although current regimes are quite effective, there are many ways to combat the effects of time; there is still a long way to go however, before methods that successfully reduce the effects of age are commonplace.

Hopefully, these challenges will get resolved in due course and better and cheaper anti-ageing skin care products will be produced. At the moment though, science is still behind the field of natural anti-aging methods; man-made products may never replace those that are available naturally! Natural methods are known, but few people actually follow them; what proportion of the population actually eats healthily, takes plenty of exercise, drink sufficient water and obtain restful and regular sleep?