The environment & our cells
The impact of ageing on skin and hair are all too depressingly familiar for those of a certain age. Sagging skin, bags, wrinkles and greying hair, but what causes this?
There are a range of theories on ageing and its cause. Experience gained from projects utilising complex biological systems analysis has led us to observe the issue from a systems standpoint.
Everyday our cells are damaged by the environment we are exposed to. Pollution, food, tobacco, alcohol, sunlight and even potentially certain ingredients in cosmetics or sun creams designed to protect us can all damage the systems within our cells.
We function as result of complicated systems within and between our cells. This is what drives the smooth skin and shiny hair in those glamorous adverts as well as the real life flaws that make us who we are.
As environmental damage accumulates over time within these systems their operational efficiency becomes compromised leading to the physical signs we associate with ageing.
The older we get, the faster we age
Unfortunately this process is not linear. The older we get, the faster we age. The reasons for this are thought to lie in a change in the primary source of systems damage plus an increase in quantity of such damage. The energy of our cells is generated by organelles within our cells called mitochondria. When the systems involved in mitochondrial function reach a certain stage of cumulative damage their efficiency is compromised and they produce excess radical oxygen species (ROS) or free radicals.
Free radicals can be visualised like bullets flying around damaging the systems within and between our cells that are responsible for how we function. At a certain point, the sub-optimal mitochondria become the primary source, in terms of quantity, of excess ROS.
Thereafter a spiral of accelerated ageing decline commences with greater quantities of ROS flying around damaging the various systems including mitochondrial systems, repair systems and the bodies natural anti-oxidant systems.The more mitochondrial systems are damaged the more excess ROS are produced with less efficient anti-oxidant systems to mop them up and compromised repair systems less able to counter the resultant damage.
We believe this cycle of accelerating decline is why the ageing accelerate as we get older rather than being linear process. This suggests countering the impact of environmental damage earlier in life could pay significant benefits later in life.
As our cells and the systems within them suffer trauma as a result of the environmental insults described above then a natural reaction of the body to such trauma involves inflammation. Chronic inflammation sets in motion a series of other changes in key systems with a knock-on impact thereby implicating inflammation within the functional decline associated with ageing.
