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Young Smokers Think Smoking Is 'Cool' But Fear The Future Impact On Their Appearance 

Young smokers say concern about the effects of smoking on their appearance is a good reason to quit smoking, but not until they see visible changes to their appearance. This is the finding of a study by Professor Sarah Grogan of the University of Staffordshire and colleagues Gary Fry, Brendan Gough and Mark Conner, published today (26th January 2009) in the British Journal of Health Psychology.

87 smokers and non-smokers aged 17-24 took part in the study, based on focus groups. The smokers discussed how smoking impacted negatively on physical appearance (skin, teeth, hair, and weight), and how they made sense of their smoking. The non-smokers also discussed a potential link between appearance and smoking, together with any appearance-related concerns that would discourage them from taking up the habit.

Male and female smokers were concerned about the impact of smoking on their appearance, but would quit only if skin ageing, wrinkling or other negative effects on appearance became noticeable. The young people did not consider themselves at immediate risk of such effects as they were thought to occur in older smokers only. Non-smokers expressed concern about the impact on skin and teeth if they started smoking.

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Correction: Skin Deep | Want a Face-Lift? First, Better Stop Smoking  

The Skin Deep column last Thursday, about cosmetic surgeons who want patients to stop smoking, misstated part of the name of a medical association. It is the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, not the American Association of Cosmetic Surgery.

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• Skin Deep - Want a Face-Lift? First, Better Stop Smoking  

the growing number of cosmetic-surgery patients are motivated to quit for other reasons: vanity, and the threat of not being able to get a coveted new face, stomach or pair of breasts. . . .

For the last 5 to 10 years, many plastic and cosmetic surgeons have refused to operate on smokers, especially those seeking a face-lift, tummy tuck, or breast-lift — procedures that require skin to be shifted.

“Nicotine causes the tiny blood vessels in the skin to clamp down or constrict, which reduces blood supply to the skin,” said Dr. Darshan Shah, a plastic surgeon in Bakersfield, Calif. Complications can include poor wound healing, increased risk of infection, longer-lasting bruises, and raised, red scars. . . .

Plastic and cosmetic surgeons recommend quitting a minimum of two weeks before and after procedures, though some require longer to be extra safe. (Smokers also run the risk of infection and respiratory complications during anesthesia). For instance, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenthal, the chief of plastic surgery at Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut, mandates six weeks of smoke-free living before eyelid surgery or breast augmentation, and six months to a year before a tummy tuck.

They also take it upon themselves to devise smoking cessation plans, prescribe drugs like Wellbutrin or Chantix and recommend hypnotists or support groups. . . .

Then there’s the matter of the cosmetic surgeon’s reputation. It can’t help business if a cigarette-loving patient ends up looking like the Bride of Frankenstein.

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Twenty-five years ago, it may have been more acceptable for a patient to have undergone surgical procedures while smoking. Nowadays if a doctor knew a patient was smoking and they did flap surgery [an operation where shifting skin is required] many of us would say that’s malpractice.
Dr. Patrick McMenamin, the president-elect of the American Association of Cosmetic Surgery.

Smoking bad for you inside and out 

Experts, noting that some studies have even proven that cigarettes yield a stronger effect than sunrays, say: "If you don't want to experience early aging, quit smoking!"

Dull, wrinkled, dirty-gray skin, recognized by many as being "smokers' skin," is a phenomenon experienced by 79 percent of smokers, says Dr. Bayram Börekçi, a skin and venereal diseases expert. He explains; "Some of the symptoms we see on smokers' faces include permanent lines and wrinkles, as well as a collapsed facial expression resulting from the protruding bones underneath the skin. We also see thinning skin, a light-gray appearance, as well as a light orange/purple/red coloring. The ‘cigarette addict's face' is the same face seen on women over the age of 70. It is worth noting that people addicted to cigarettes start getting wrinkles very early.

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In Smoke-Free Minnesota, Five Former Smokers Share Their Struggles With Fighting Addiction 

In smoke-free Minnesota, five Minnesotans who personally struggled to go smoke-free are sharing their stories, from the time they started smoking to their state of physical and emotional well-being today. Their inspiring stories will be showcased in ClearWay Minnesota's traveling photo essay exhibit today at the IDS Crystal Court in Minneapolis.

The exhibit celebrates the efforts of Minnesotans who used QUITPLAN(R) Services, ClearWay Minnesota's free, professional stop-smoking programs that have helped more than 12,000 Minnesotans successfully quit tobacco since 2001.

Those visiting the exhibit will also have an opportunity see how their own faces could become wrinkled and discolored if they smoked for years. ClearWay Minnesota will be providing free demonstrations of age-progression software for visitors to experience.

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Smoking link to psoriasis confirmed 

Italian study findings have confirmed a link between smoking habits and the risk of developing psoriasis.

Previous research has indicated that smoking significantly increases the risk of developing psoriasis, explains Giampiero Favato, from Henley Management College in the UK. . . .

Favato notes in the American Journal of Medicine that the incidences of light, medium and heavy smoking were comparable in each of the two psoriasis cohorts studied, at about 16%, 20% and 5%, respectively.

He concludes: "Italian epidemiological data on adult psoriatic patients seem to confirm the correlation between smoking habits and the risk of developing the disease."

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The Claim: Smoking Can Cause the Loss of Hair 

Scientists have long speculated cigarette smoke may accelerate hair loss and premature graying. The association was largely attributed to toxins in smoke that can harm hair follicles and damage hormones. According to epidemiological studies, that appears to be the case. A report in the journal BMJ looked at more than 600 men and women, half of them smokers. After controlling for variables, the researchers found a “significant” and “consistent” link between smoking and early graying. . . .

One question is whether the link is a result of tobacco toxins directly affecting the scalp, or of smoking’s causing severe disease that speeds aging.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Several studies suggest smoking can lead to premature graying and hair loss.

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Doctor: Drinking Bottled Water Can Have Same Effect On Face As Smoking  

A doctor claims drinking a lot of bottled water can actually be like smoking three packs of cigarettes a day.

A dermatologist said drinking bottled water could be making us look older. She claims it's doing the same thing to our lips that smoking does.

Melissa, 54, is a picture of health. She runs, bikes and does triathlons, which is why she needs to keep hydrated. . . .

According to Berzin, dozens of women have come in puzzled by lines and wrinkles around their lips. It's a condition termed "smokers' lips" because of the similar pattern of wrinkles found on the faces of long-term, heavy smokers.

But many of the women have never smoked a day in their life.

"When you're drinking from a water bottle, you're pretty much making the same face as you are when you're smoking a cigarette," Berzin said. "Basically, when you're smoking, you're pursing your lips. In this position, you're getting all the little ridges. Over time you get permanent lines that then remain and stay."

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Floridians Can Now Get Smokified! from Miami to Milton, Smokifiers Hit the Road to Show the Impact of Smoking on Aging 

Two mobile Smokifiers equipped with age-progression technology are visiting community and sporting events, retailers and college campuses throughout more than 25 metro and rural cities across Florida and reaching approximately 3 million people. Cautioning not only on the health risks but also the effects on personal appearance, the Smokifiers are another way that Tobacco Free Florida is spreading the anti-tobacco message and reaching Floridians directly.

The two brightly wrapped blue vans are hitting Florida's roadways and will travel thousands of miles over the next three months educating millions about the harmful effects of tobacco.

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Ask Dr. H: Smoking ages skin; here's why  

There are two types of effects: Directly, many of the more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke are toxic to skin. Indirectly, chronic squinting of the eyes to keep out smoke, and pursing or puckering of the lips while holding a cigarette, both cause facial wrinkles.

Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide and many other oxidants that promote the formation of age-inducing, skin-toxic free-radicals. Nicotine is a stimulant that causes the blood vessels to constrict, reducing the supply of oxygen to the tissues of the skin. Smoking also depletes Vitamin C, which is important for collagen production in the skin. And it induces changes at the cellular level to interfere with the formation of fibroblasts - cells that form connective tissue in the skin.

All these biochemical changes occur as a result of the chemicals in cigarette smoke.

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• Study suggests smoking affects skin  

Women who smoke are more likely to have noninflammatory acne, especially blackheads and blocked pores, than nonsmokers are, according to the British Journal of Dermatology.

How much a woman smoked didn't seem to have an effect on the severity of breakouts. But those who had had acne as teens were four times more likely to have "smoker's acne" as an adult.

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Event aims to snuff out smoking 

Any teenager with an inkling of curiosity about what he or she will look like at 50 — both as a smoker and as a nonsmoker — can find out Wednesday.

Age-progression software is just one of the “extras” that will be offered at a Kick Butts Day dodgeball tournament set to take place from 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday at Civic Arena. The event, which costs $3 per person or $15 per five-person team, is part of the Smokebusters program funded by a Heartland Foundation grant through the St. Joseph-Buchanan County Health Department.

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Some Facelift Patients Infected With MRSA 'Superbug'  

A small, but worrisome number of facelift patients became infected with the antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA, a new study reports.

About one half of 1 percent of people undergoing facelifts developed the so-called "superbug" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection, doctors from Lennox Hill-Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital in New York City reported. . . .

Other risk factors for MRSA infection include having taken antibiotics or having been hospitalized recently, contact with health-care workers, previous MRSA infection, older age, diabetes, smoking and obesity, the study authors said.

"With the rise of MRSA colonization and infections, facial plastic surgeons performing rhytidectomy [facelift] and other soft tissue procedures may want to consider introducing screening protocols to identify patients who are at increased risk for infection," Zoumalan and Rosenberg wrote. "During preoperative evaluation, a full medical history should include information on possible prior contacts with persons at high risk for carrying MRSA."

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BEGLEY: Ageing, not death, scares smokers  

A BLOOD clot plopping out of a bisected brain. Tar being squeezed from a lung into a surgeon's dish. A foot blackened with gangrene awaiting the amputation saw.

A generation of young Australians have grown up with these images, with anti-smoking ads more graphic than the latest Saw movie.

The shock factor of these campaigns has helped gradually reduce Australia's smoking population. Yet every day someone still buys their first packet of Stuyvos from a 7-Eleven and begins their habit.

Why? Because the anti-smoking campaigns of past and present appeal to the mortality of a demographic which is immortal. . . .

This truth demands a new breed of anti-smoking advertisements whose message concerns not mortality, but vanity. . . .

Packets of cigarettes should bear warnings such as: SMOKING CAUSES WRINKLES; SMOKING STAINS YOUR TEETH; SMOKING TURNS YOUR SKIN GREY.

Finally, imagine what terror a message like: SMOKING AGES YOU PREMATURELY, would strike into the hearts of our youth-obsessed society. . . .

But a parlous complexion or a ruined smile are still much more immediate threats than being in an emphysema ward at the age of 63.

The shots of cancer-devoured organs continue to serve their purpose. The more gimmicky, "I'd prefer mouth cancer to premature blindness" campaign still gets its message across.

But unless Wizened Chic becomes the next big thing in Milan, vanity-based anti-smoking ads can be the extra deterrent the government has been looking for.

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Association of Androgenetic Alopecia With Smoking and Its Prevalence Among Asian Men: A Community-Based Survey 

Conclusions

The age-specific prevalence of AGA in Taiwan was compatible to that among Korean men but was lower than that among persons of white race/ethnicity. Smoking status, current amount of cigarette smoking, and smoking intensity were statistically significant factors responsible for AGA after controlling for age and family history. Patients with early-onset AGA should receive advice early to prevent more advanced progression.

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