How Much Does Genetics Play Into Skin Aging?

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How much does Genetics play into Skin Aging? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and fitness hall of famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Katie Moore from YouTube asks, when it comes to skin aging, how much of a factor would you say genetics plays into it? Hey, it's JJ And I've got Rachel Varga, board certified aesthetic nurse specialist with me to answer this question. Now, besides her obsession with non surgical solutions for amazing skin, she's got some pretty diverse interests from scuba diving with sharks to writing her own music and playing a variety of instruments. She'll be right back, so stay with us.

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What a fantastic question from Katie Moore. Thanks so much for reaching out on Instagram. Her question was how much does genetics play into skin aging and customizing your routine? And actually, this is where I truly believe that skin health is going. Not only skin health, but just our physical health in general. How we should be exercising, how we should be eating. Absolutely. If you're wanting to maximize your efforts, do some genetic analyses, do some labs, and really see what your physical constitution truly, truly wants. So we're going to talk about coconut oil for a second here. Some people love coconut oil on their face, on their body. They just swear by it. They eat it, they put it in and on absolutely everything. And then there's some people that it makes them break out. It makes their skin red and irritated. It makes them not just feel good in general, and they don't get the results that they're wanting from it. So this is a prime example of something that is quote unquote healthy. However, some people just aren't going to be able to process it in a particular way that you would hope to have it processed. And this actually comes down to the fact that some detox pathways could be blocked or it's just not right for your constitution. So when I'm looking at customizing a skin routine for someone, I've actually found that based on where people have come from in the world, say, for example, a lot of us in North America here do have a background from Europe. So we are European. And people with a European background, I find, do really well with a certain type of protocol with certain ingredients. And then there are other people from other places of the world, say, for example, South America, the Philippines, the Orient. And they have different skin concerns that they want to address, including hyperpigmentation, melasma. And when people have those types of genetic backgrounds, they actually seem to do well with other active ingredients that help to suppress the overproduction of melanin, which is what's causing Melasma or the melanocytes to overproduce melanin. So that's really cool. And then there are even supplements to suppress that overproduction of melanin in the skin using certain enzymes and antioxidants, which is really, really neat. And even. It can provide a layer of internal sun protection. Yes. Sunscreen from the inside out. And because I'm a Fitzpatrick skin type, too, my genes have put me there. Right. I don't have a lot of melanin in my skin, so I tend to burn quite easily. So when I want to go outside and go snorkeling or scuba diving or what have you, and I want to be in the water and enjoy the sunshine, I actually take certain supplements to boost my sun protection from the inside out, so I can actually be outside for longer. How cool is that? Absolutely. Genetics do play a role in skin aging. And in regards to skin aging, we have different facial shapes to. To our faces. Right. Some of us are going to have more prominent mandibles or jaw lines, that bone that makes up your jaw. And some of us have smaller jaws. And what happens over time is we have more reabsorption. So, so if you take a look at some of your family members, and they have that double chin, and everybody has it, maybe that's something that you might have to work a little bit harder at to prevent from occurring over time and reduce that jawline bone reabsorption by maybe sleeping on your back or sleeping on your side using a specific type of pillow that's going to be less likely to compress the muscle. So what happens to all of us as we age is we lose bone in our faces, we lose fat, and we also lose collagen and elastin. So another thing, if you notice in your family that everyone gets, you know, really hooded eyelids or puffy lower eye bags, again, that could be something you're genetically predisposed to, so you can do different lifestyle modifications like addressing how you're sleeping to reduce that accelerated compression of your bone, fat, soft tissue like collagen and elastin. And some of us, like myself, because I'm what you would call a Fitzpatrick skin type 2, I don't have a lot of melanin in my skin, so I actually have to work really hard with my skin care daily, night, morning, and nighttime, to protect it from the sun, to reduce that predisposition that I have to develop precancerous or cancerous lesions. So that was a great question from Katie Moore. Thanks so much for reaching out and we were talking all about how genetics play a role in skin aging.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetoj.com.

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