Will Antioxidants Impact Your Age?

Today, we’re having a guest post by a cosmetic chemist who calls himself “SoapyGuy”.

There has been a lot of buzz in the cosmetic community about this recent study that appears to prove that antioxidants have no effect on aging. So what is this study and what does it really mean?

Anti-oxidants and Age

Since the 1950s one of the leading theories on aging has been that it is caused by the accumulation of damage from free radicals, but a study from University College London (UCL) claims to disprove this theory. The topic of free radicals is more than an article in itself, but let us just say that they’re highly reactive molecules that are thought to cause a lot of damage to cells.

Superoxide Dismutase and Worms

Cells have a number of mechanisms for preventing this damage, one of which is an enzyme called superoxide dismutase (SOD). What the scientists at UCL did was genetically crank up the ability of a nematode worm, C. elegans, to produce this enzyme. The theory is that if there was no superoxide, one of the main free radicals in cells, the worm should live longer. But that wasn’t the case. And this isn’t the first study to show this; a University of Texas study using mice appeared to have a similar result.

Anti-oxidants Useless?

So does this mean free radicals have nothing to do with aging, antioxidants are useless, and we should stop using antioxidants to treat aging? Not likely. There are a number of problems with making these conclusions from this study. For one, superoxide is only one of several free radical species in the body. Furthermore, SOD actually produces another oxidative species, hydrogen peroxide, as a by-product. There are other antioxidants in cells that then process the hydrogen peroxide, so SOD is only a part of a much more complex mechanism for fighting oxidative damage. Finally, there is a wealth of studies prior to these that appear to demonstrate the validity of the free radical damage theory for aging. Most scientists agree that free radicals play an important, but not exclusive role in aging.

Anti-oxidants in skin care

Now what about antioxidants in skin care products?  Do they really work? There is currently a wealth of evidence saying they do, so it’s difficult to be swayed by one study on a worm. It has been proven that oxidative damage results in many of the characteristics we normally associate with aging skin. There are also many studies that show that facial treatments with antioxidants have a significant beneficial affect on the skin’s appearance when compared to the same treatments without antioxidants. If the proof is in the pudding, there’s a lot of pudding out there.

Keep Using Antioxidants

The UCL study can’t definitively prove that free radicals don’t cause aging and there is a lot of evidence that antioxidants are healthful to the skin and body. Topical antioxidants are still recommended as part of a healthy skin regiment.

SoapyGuy is on Twitter. You can follow him here.