A study has revealed that expensive skin creams rich in antioxidants and championed by the beauty industry for anti-ageing and wrinkle-reducing effects could actually harm the skin of younger people.
“This study shows that it’s essential that we look across the entire lifespan when we examine mechanisms implicated in the ageing process.
“We found unexpected effects; mechanisms that benefit us when we’re young, cause problems as we age, ” Prof Judith Campisi, of California’s Buck Institute for Research on Ageing told nzherald.
Dr Michael Velarde, lead author of the study added that “This is not a simple process. It may be that nature used free radicals to optimize skin health, but because this process is not deleterious to the organism until later in life, past its reproductive age, there was no need to evolve ways to alter this mechanism.”