Inflammaging - A New Way to Look At Skin Aging

Inflammaging, a term blending "inflammation" and "aging," has become a hot topic in both scientific and skincare circles. While not new, the concept is reshaping how beauty professionals address skin health.

Neither a new concept nor a new scientific discovery, inflammaging has been at the forefront of scientific research within the medical and dermatology field for upwards of 10 years. In the last few years, however, its takeover of the professional beauty and aesthetics industry has truly begun. 

The professional beauty and aesthetics industry is often last to reap the rewards of scientific research, due to the skin not being classified as a vital organ nor one of key focus when it comes to life saving and chronic illnesses. However, what is new is the lens professional skin experts within the beauty industry are beginning to look through; the lens of chronic low-grade inflammation and how this intracellular process is the leading and root cause of almost all skin conditions and skin disorders as well as skin aging that is presented to us daily.

In this article we’ll dive right into inflammaging, where you’ll discover how you can make head waves with results for your client’s skin conditions by ever so slightly changing the lens in which you look at the skin, and how adopting a pragmatic approach to prevention and intervention against the leading cause of skin aging is, and will continue to be, the answer to skin health and well-being.

Discover:

• What is inflammaging, and how does it differ from typical aging?
• What is chronic low-grade inflammation and how does it play a role in inflammaging?
• When does inflammaging start?
• How can lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise, impact inflammaging
• How does stress contribute to inflammaging, and what are effective stress management techniques?
• What are the best skincare products to treat inflammaging?
• How can mindfulness and holistic practices play a role in reducing inflammaging?

Inflammaging: the word itself is the fusion of aging skin and chronic low-grade inflammation. Inflammaging doesn’t necessarily differ from ‘typical’ aging, it is merely a deeper, more precise way of viewing aging, it’s the change in lens.

All beauty and skin professionals understand skin aging can be both chronological and premature and we all know that distinguishing features of skin aging are due to the breakdown of collagen and elastin fibres, a loss of volume and contour to the face, oxidation both internally and externally, sun damage and hyperpigmentation. 

Most skin savvy clinicians and beauty therapists are aware that inflammation ages the skin faster than it should, however the diagnosis of inflammation is almost always associated with visible signs of redness, heat, sensitivity and general reactivity in the skin. 

You see, there are two different forms of inflammation: 1) acute inflammation and 2) chronic low-grade inflammation. Acute inflammation is the initial response of the body to harmful stimuli, think a cut, an abrasion or sudden illness and infection. This form of inflammation is visibly associated with the cause of stimuli and is resolved and healed via the skins own wound healing processes.

And then, there is chronic low-grade inflammation.

This type of inflammation is not always present in the skin with the visible signs dermal clinicians and beauty therapists are looking for as it is undetectable to the naked eye. This is because chronic low-grade inflammation is a microscopic process happening to the skin rather than a definitive skin condition these skin professionals are trained to look for.

Chronic low-grade inflammation can be described as the over activation of the natural inflammatory process, which put simply is when a cell recognises pollution, cellular waste accumulation, or that DNA damage has occurred due to oxidative stress and UV exposure.

Once this has been detected by our cells there is a small vesicle located within our cells called an inflammasome that becomes activated, and this releases inflammatory messages (IL-8/pro inflammatory cytokines). These messages call in the immune system and immune cells to help, and the problem or waste is rectified by removal via the lymphatic system.

When this natural inflammatory process is over activated it overwhelms the immune system and over burdens the immune cells involved in the process. Think of it like spending your life people pleasing, never saying no and then subsequently ending up with burn out. When the skin’s immune system is overwhelmed, the immune cells simply cannot keep up with all the messages they are being sent and, when they themselves are over worked, will also begin to release their own inflammatory messages, causing almost a storm of inflammatory signals in the skin.

This is when inflammaging occurs. A completely over worked, overwhelmed immune system and so the skin suffers due to the influx of inflammatory messages swirling around. This ages the skin by rapidly decreasing collagen and elastin, breaking down the skin’s natural hyaluronan and causing further DNA and cellular damage resulting in early cell senescence. Think of cell senescence as the end point to trauma where the cell can longer function anymore.

There is no definitive starting point to inflammaging nor is there a specific age where it occurs, however generally speaking as we chronologically age things like cellular waste accumulation, oxidative stress and DNA damage are rampant in the skin (and the body) and this exacerbates and further drives inflammaging. 

We’d be lucky if age alone was the sole contributing factor for inflammaging, but unfortunately our lifestyle and the modern world in which we live is bringing the onset of inflammaging something that is occurring much earlier on in life and is in no way reserved for just chronological aging.

There are a multitude of contributing factors that drive inflammaging; research shows that poor diet, lack of sleep, poor lymphatics and circulation as well as gut dysbiosis (leaky gut lining) all play a major role in the early onset of inflammaging. This is due to the overwhelming amount of stress put on the skin as it attempts to keep up with the demands of the continual release of stress hormones (adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine). Not to mention the toxin build up which continues to trigger the body’s stress response. 

Healthy lifestyle choices like getting a solid 6-8 hours of sleep per night, consuming a balanced diet of foods rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins and antioxidants as well as supplementing with quality, scientifically backed pre, pro and post biotic ingestibles that are fortified with the daily requirements of minerals, iron, vitamins and antioxidants are a great way to ensure your body is getting all it needs. This will help to decrease internal oxidative stress, balance the gut lining and help with quality sleep. Getting the body moving is always a brilliant way to increase the release of happy hormones such as dopamine and serotonin which both reduce the stress response, give us a sense of achievement, happiness and well-being and help to regulate our nervous system.

Simply put, inflammaging is the skin’s way of telling you it is severely stressed. The skin is also intricately connected to the brain, stemming from the same cell embryologically meaning they have similar mechanics. Much like the brain directly communicates to the adrenals and the endocrine system, known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), where the body’s stress response and release of stress hormones occur. The skin also has its very own axis with the brain known as the skin-brain axis. This means that skin cells can synthesis and release cortisol when they’re under stress further perpetrating the overwhelming levels of cortisol in the body which is an astronomically huge driving force for inflammaging.

Stress, whether that be physical or exhaustive stress from exercise or manual labour, or mental and emotional stress from either day to day living or unresolved emotional wounds and trauma is essentially what ages us through the process now coined ‘inflammaging’. 

When our skin and its cells are under stress which was identified earlier as chronic low-grade inflammation, the body feels the stress of this as well. It becomes a cyclical stress response that destroys the skin’s structural integrity and can cause increasingly early skin aging, not to mention a host of other illnesses and ailments for the body.

Effective stress management techniques may look different to each individual person however, holistically the following methods are proven to decrease stress levels:

• Practising mindfulness daily
• Carving time out for the things you love and enjoy
• Spending less time on devices and social media 
• Practising meditation or listening to healing frequencies before sleep
• Seeking professional support through therapy and other practices that release stored emotions in the body
• Being kind and gentle with yourself 
• Practising breathwork

By adopting practices of mindfulness and ensuring that our mind, body and heart are seen as a collective group of vital parts that contribute to our overall wellness, we can reduce the early onset of inflammaging. We can do this by proactively focusing on our self-awareness and regulating our nervous system. By decreasing the body and the skin’s stress response, we will actively play a role in decreasing the chances of aging due to chronic low-grade inflammation.

More and more skincare companies are developing products that have a specific focus on treating and preventing inflammaging such as NEUROCOSMEDICS by GINGER&ME. This cosmedical, professional and evidence-based boutique skin care line is dedicated to the prevention and intervention of both inflammaging and neuro-aging. 

Fortified with the clinically proven Key Three Ingredients, NEUROCOSMEDICS specifically focuses on cell recovery, decreasing the skin’s stress response, re-wiring the connection between nerve cells and fibroblasts as well as activating detoxification pathways and increasing Vitamin D synthesis to prevent inflammaging.