Everybody by now must know the benefits of leading a physically-active lifestyle. But it increasingly looks like exercise may even be the fountain of youth! According to The Globe and Mail, a new research indicated that exercise may prove to be the best-kept anti-aging secret for youthful skin.

As we age, the loss of structural support leads to deflation and the appearance of deep folds, wrinkles and jowls. Aging skin also becomes more coarse, dehydrated and lax. Researchers from McMaster University have found that in mice models, regular exercise has been shown to stave off and reverse the signs of early aging. As compared to sedentary mice, those given access to running wheels maintained healthier brains, hearts, muscles, reproductive organs and fur over a longer period of time. Also, the active mice’s fur did not grey and they did not develop furrows and wrinkles.

The McMaster researchers followed up their mice studies with a small human trial evaluating 29 subjects between ages 20 and 84 to compare those who were active – performing at least three hours of physical activity weekly – to those who were sedentary. Measurements of the skin in an unexposed area, the buttock, were also compared across groups.

While skin changes occurred with aging, the active subjects were found to have thinner stratum corneums and thicker dermis layers, with a more youthful skin composition regardless of age. The research group also showed that starting a new exercise program later in life results in rejuvenative changes to the skin as seen in those subjects who consistently partook in regular aerobic exercise.

Although this human study represented a very small sample, it supported past research that excercise benefits our skin. Exercise can also go a long way toward  “cleaning up” and toning our complexion. According to Dalton Wong, a celebrity trainer, engaging in the correct exercises will help us tone our skin in much the same  way we tone our muscles.

According to Wong, to improve your skin, you’ll want to focus on resistance training, where you’re using your own bodyweight to challenge your muscles. Lunges, pushups, and planking are  examples of resistance exercises. To tone both muscles and skin, and help eliminate cellulite, he recommends implementing a circuit routine consisting of  three to four sets of weight bearing exercises with two to four minutes of cardio  in between, repeated four times.

Wong warns that excessive cardio can actually cause your skin to lose its youthful elasticity, especially if you’re over- or underweight. One of the reasons for this is because the stress placed on your body when you’re running long distances produces excessive  amounts of cortisol, a stress hormone responsible for inflammation. This can  take a heavy toll on your skin, as cortisol tends to break down collagen, resulting in wrinkling and sagging.

So if you’re already moving, move more, but moderately. If you are a couch potato, it’s never too late to start moving now!

I’ve posted before on this blog that men and boomers have led to the growth of the spa industry. Recent statistics show that more men in North America and Europe are even enduring pain to look younger. According to The Economist, more men are seeking cosmetic treatments not just to look beautiful, but also to appear fresher and less worried.

In London and Paris, more bankers and businessmen are queuing up for Botox treatments. Typically, a swift shot of the toxin which freezes muscles, targets the deep forehead cleft which can happen to men over 40, especially if they spend all day frowning at a screen. Other favoured treatments are lasers, which perk up skin-tone, and cosmetic fillers for those deep grooves between the nose and the mouth.  While the French male patients tag along with their wives, Englishmen tend to seek their cosmetic treatments alone.

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Botox was used 336,834 times by American men in 2010, up nine percent from 2009. But women are still 15 times more likely than men to have their faces frozen.

Less invasive male maintenance is growing, too. Mintel, a market researcher, says sales of men’s beauty products in France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy rose by eight percent between 2005 and 2010, in spite of the recession, and will grow another eight percent by 2014. Moisturizers dominate in France, Britain and Spain, while Germans and Italians prefer deodorants.

According to The Globe and Mail, ageism in the workplace might have something to do with the increase in Canadian men seeking cosmetic treatments as a result of the recession. Vera V. Madison, a Toronto doctor of aesthetic medicine, estimated that the number of male patients she treated in her clinic increased in 2011 over the previous year by 40 to 50 percent. She said that men are not that different from women when it comes to looking good. When they look in the mirror, they don’t like to see wrinkles or droops or other kinds of changes in their appearance brought on by the aging process.

For many men, though, looking good isn’t just about vanity, but about excelling at or even keeping their jobs. Dr. Jean Carruthers, the Vancouver-based cosmetic surgeon who pioneered the use of Botox in beauty procedures, cites a male patient, a computer salesman, who says he can chart his sales according to the effectiveness of his treatments.

Apparently, looking good and less tired gives men an edge in the workplace and gives them the confidence to compete on a level-playing field. Sounds like men are increasingly insecure when it comes to aging and its impact on their jobs!

A woman columnist from last week’s New York Times expressed her perspective that boomers should allow themselves to age naturally instead of using youth-enhancers when they are no longer young.

Dominique Browning said that her current rule of thumb, when confronted with an enhanced face, is that if she finds herself vaguely wondering whether there was work, the alteration was well done. But it’s the motivation for the cosmetic work that she’s questioning. “If you choose not to partake of the benefits of needle and knife, you are judged to be making a statement. You are taking a position against the current standards of beauty.”

She also argued that feminism has nothing to do with saying no to knife and needle. Feminists worry about why women still make only 77 cents to every dollar a man makes, not whether women are going broke on reducing wrinkles.

There are always two sides to the argument – why can’t we just ignore the signs of aging and just grow old naturally? Are we boomers in self-denial? And my answer is always this – like everything else, cosmetic work (both invasive and non-invasive) should be done in moderation. Why do it at all? Well, if this makes some boomer men and women happier and more comfortable with their self-images, why not? Look at these procedures like self-improvement solutions. If the modern-world technology is safe and fast and efficient, and you can afford it, then by all means make use of it and enjoy the benefits. But please bear in mind that defying physical aging is just unnatural, and a boomer with no wrinkles or facial expression is just fake, artificial and deceiving.

My experience is that a man or woman who constantly has cosmetic procedures done to such an extent that there are no laugh lines and no facial emotions, then he or she usually has a bigger self-esteem problem than just defying age. And for those patients who are putting their lives in danger by going through surgery without doing their research, they are just plain foolish. But when boomers are just undergoing cosmetic enhancements as moderate self-improvement solutions, then I don’t think people should make harsh judgements. After all, I’m sure even those who constantly go under the knife should realize that there’s something more important in life and human beings that are not related to physical appearance!