Thursday, April 27, 2006

The Great Skin Hoax

Beauty and health spas along with "fitness centers" would have everybody believe that you can exercise skin and thereby "tone" it like muscle. They also would have you believe that vitamins, herbal concoctions and exotic lotions (more on that later) can rejuvenate the skin. Nothing could be further from the truth! You can exercise muscle, brain, heart, lungs, and even bone, but not skin. Skin is very much like a rubber band. It has the same elastic properties. Both can be stretched to the point that their elastic bonds break. The rubber band has small white streaks and does not return to its former length; skin has "stretch marks" and poor elasticity and capability to return to its former size. This happens when both the rubber band and skin are stressed beyond their normal limits. Once that occurs the elasticity is gone forever. The second way that elasticity decreases or vanishes is, of course, with age. Put a rubber band in a drawer for a year or two and see what happens. Hope springs eternal and thats how millions if not billions of dollars are spent. As long as we don't inquire they will not tell.

posted by Dr_Goldstein at 11:03 AM 0 comments