With age, our skin changes. It becomes drier, thinner, less elastic and slower to heal. But most of the skin changes people worry about are not due to the normal aging process. Most undesirable cosmetic changes to our skin are due to photo-aging. Photo-aging, as the name implies, is the result of skin damage caused by chronic exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) light. Some degree of photo-aging affects 80 to 90 per cent of the North American population. Different skin types respond differently to sun exposure, with lighter skinned individuals being most at risk. A survey of Australians, a light-skinned population with year round sun exposure, found that 72 per cent of men and 47 per cent of women showed signs of moderate to severe photo-aging before age 30. Non-Caucasians may have a slight advantage in this area. One study showed that Chinese women get wrinkles about 10 years later than French women.
