Skin: The Great Protector

Summer’s on the wane, ushering in cherished traditions like back-to-school face-offs with one’s munchkins in clothing stores and meanly insisting that they wait another month before cramming their faces with the black ‘n’ orange candy in the supermarket aisles. But the shift in seasons means something else too, says the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery: “It’s beginning to look a lot like skin surgery time,” the society brightly reminds us.

Yes, folks, while one’s body is covered with sweaters and slacks and the sun is less cruelly harsh, it’s time for procedures such as liposuction or “facial rejuvenation.” That way, “when the rejuvenation of spring is here, you’ll be ready to show off your new, fresh look.”

I tarried over my coffee and toast to educate myself on the latest aesthetic techniques and was intrigued to learn that one can now get liposuction under local anesthetic. I assume this would allow you to watch your fat being vacuumed out--though, personally, my curiosity about what cellulite looks like has been laid to rest by the large, fake, rubber model of a mound of the substance (colored yellow, with occasional red flecks of blood) sitting on a colleague’s desk. (It was sent to her, unsolicited, by some folks selling an anti-cellulite treatment: Let it never be said there are no perks in this job.)

I also did the society’s “skin rejuvenation quiz.” I scored an impressive 7out of 9! Fine lines, dull skin tone, enlarged pores, I have it all, which means I may be eligible for laser resurfacing and chemical peels--maybe even both. However, it looks from the quiz like I am beyond microdermabrasion, sub-surface laser skin rejuvenation, injectable wrinkle fillers and botulinum toxin treatment. (Microdermabrasion is what you should be asking your dermatologist about if your blemish score is less than a 3.) It’s beginning to look a lot like sniveling-insecurity time.

Crushed by the news about my pocked and wrinkled skin, I was still sniveling slightly when I got on the phone with Dr. Peter Elias, a professor of dermatology at UC San Francisco. He cheered me right up. My skin, he told me, “is incredible.”

OK, OK, so he wasn’t talking about my skin in particular--but rather skin in general as a nifty, versatile covering that can do pretty much everything save slice and dice. It has immune function. It senses heat, pain and pressure. It makes vitamin D. It protects us from UV rays. More important, “it’s a barrier that lets us survive in the terrestrial environment, that allowed us to crawl out of oceans,” enthuses Elias. “You and I would not be sitting here today if we did not have an effective barrier sealing moisture inside and keeping the bad things outside.”

Skin can do this partly because it’s acidic, says Elias--it’s covered with a so-called acid mantle that scientists have known about for 100 years. We’re not talking acid enough to sizzle things when we touch them (though wouldn’t that be fun?) but around the pH of crushed tomatoes. We don’t start off or end up that way: Babies are born with more alkaline skin, and older folks have more alkaline skin too. That, it turns out, could be why fresh, tender skin and vintage, well-aged hides are both more fragile than skin of other ages. The acid appears to be involved in keeping skin hydrated and in one piece.

Elias’ group, for instance, recently published a study in which they interfered with the formation of acidity on patches of skin on mice. The mouse skin got drier in those patches. More bits of skin came off from those patches when strips of adhesive tape were applied then--ow!--tugged off. Plus when things aren’t as acidic, Elias says, it looks, under the microscope, as if the mouse skin cells aren’t joining as tightly together.

Having an acidic body covering is probably useful in other ways too: It likely discourages the growth of certain disease-causing bacteria. Benign or beneficial bacteria grow better than those bad guys at the skin’s regular pH.

Finally, the acid comes from various places, Elias says. Sweat and skin oil is acid. Cells in the skin are constantly pumping out hydrogen ions--and various enzymes in the skin produce acidic chemicals too.

Wow! Now that I know how wondrous my skin is, wrinkles and all, surely it’s hard to still be irked by my score of 7 on that rejuvenation quiz.

Strangely enough, I’m finding it remarkably easy.

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