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Great new reason to exercise—exercise keeps skin younger and may even reverse skin aging!
The wrinkles and sagging that happens as we age is due to a thickening of the outer layer of skin and a thinning of the layer of skin just below it. These changes happen even if you stay out of the sun.
Researchers set out to see if these skin changes were inevitable. They first gathered 29 male and female volunteers ages 20 to 84. About half of the participants exercised at least three hours of moderate or vigorous physical activity every week, while the others exercised for less than an hour per week. Then the researchers looked at the skin on the buttocks since it hadn’t been frequently exposed to the sun. Compared by age, the skin samples overall aligned with what would be expected. Older volunteers generally had thicker outer layers of skin and significantly thinner inner layers.
But when the researchers divided the volunteers by exercise habits, they found that after age 40, the men and women who exercised frequently had skin much closer in composition to that of the 20- and 30-year-olds than to that of others of their age, even if they were past age 65.
