Measuring Structural Skin Aging

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(From EurekAlert!) The biochemical processes of aging change the structure of skin, leading to the familiar visual signs - along with a host of other, far more serious issues in skin-like tissues throughout the body. Testing real, scientific solutions (not the useless junk pushed by the "anti-aging" marketplace) has been hampered up until now by a lack of good diagnostics: "Currently, dermatologists who want to check out the collagen network of a patient's dermis need to remove a sample of tissue and analyze it in the lab, under a microscope or by other methods. In particular, it is impossible to monitor variations in the very same spot as aging progresses. ... researchers [have] demonstrated a new technique that non-invasively measures in real time the level of damage to the skin from sun exposure and aging ... This new laser-based technique images the fabric of the deeper layers of the skin, combining methods for imaging collagen and elastin, whose degeneration causes the appearance of wrinkles and the progressive loss of skin smoothness."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-10/osoa-grd100306.php