Alpha Life Style Center

Fountain of Youth: Look Younger, Live Longer, Stop Smoking

So we all know that smoking is dangerous to your health.  It is the leading factor in lung cancer and a huge amount of other medical issues.  Smoking also impacts the way you look.  In the United states and all over the world people are obsessed with their appearance.  We can never be thin enough or if only our nose was a little smaller or our hair a little straighter.  The way we look, though many claim that they don’t care, is a huge part of American culture.

A few years ago, advertisements used to portray all the cool kids smoking and they pushed that smoking is what the in-crowd was doing.  Well in resent studies it has been proven that smoking impacts the way that you look.  Damage is done to the collagen in your skin.  Collagen is a group of naturally occurring proteins that are found primarily in flesh, and connective tissues.  The connective tissue portion of collagen is the main portion of flesh that is damaged.  What does that mean to your appearance?  Well, when you pull on your skin it snaps back unharmed.  When you do that after the collagen has been damaged your skin will still snap back, but not to where it was originally.

The skin of a smoker ages much faster than that of non-smokers which has part to do with the previously mentioned issue, but also because of a lack of vitamin C.  The chemicals that are in cigarettes cause the destruction of about 50mg of vitamin C.  A shortage of vitamin C will cause your skin to appear more wrinkled than if you had a healthy level of vitamin C in your skin.

So if you are not going to quit smoking because of the monetary cost that continues to increase or because of the health risks, perhaps you will for the sake of your appearance.  Staying young and healthy longer can be achieved by quitting smoking.

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