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Smoking Cessation

How Old Will You Look When You're 60?

Although you most likely know that smoking has a detrimental effect on your health and well being, you may not be aware of the devastating impact smoking has on your appearance. The outward damage goes far beyond stained teeth and fingertips. Research has shown that people who smoke at least ten cigarettes daily for a minimum of ten years are more likely to develop deeply wrinkled, leathery skin than nonsmokers.

How Does Smoking Age the Skin?

Smoking causes aging of the skin in a number of different ways. Substances in cigarette smoke cause biochemical changes in the skin that accelerate the aging process. People who smoke for a number of years tend to develop an unhealthy yellowish cast to their complexion. Their skin also appears drier and less smooth. This is because smoking in general, and nicotine in particular, causes a decrease in blood flow to the extremities. (Just ten minutes of smoking decreases the body's and skin's oxygen supply for almost an hour.) Since the skin is nurtured by the blood that reaches the tiny capillaries, it literally starves when the flow of oxygenated blood is diminished. In addition to this damage, the chemicals in cigarette smoke directly impact the elastin and collagen that support the skin, causing it to wrinkle and sag.

The act of smoking also causes bio-mechanical changes in the skin. Smokers generally purse their lips when inhaling, and squint when exhaling. Over time, the repeated pulling of the skin causes wrinkles to form around the lips and eyes. Dermatologists have observed that the skin of an average 40-year-old smoker has the same appearance as the skin of a 60-year-old non-smoker .i

A study conducted in 2002 showed that facial wrinkling, while not yet visible, can be seen under a microscope in smokers as young as 20. ii Scientists also believe that smoking may cause more wrinkling in women than in men.

Smoking also interferes with the skin’s healing process. If your skin is wounded (including sun damage), the restricted blood flow will result in slower healing, with increased likelihood of scarring.

Aging of the skin due to smoking can be greatly diminished, and in some cases avoided, by stopping smoking. Even people who have smoked for many years, or who have smoked heavily at a younger age, have fewer facial wrinkles and improved skin tone when they quit smoking.

i. Burke KE. Facial wrinkles: prevention and nonsurgical correction. Postgraduate Medicine 1990;88:207-228.

ii Koh JS, Kang H, Choi SW, Kim HO. Cigarette smoking associated with premature facial wrinkling: image analysis of facial skin replicas. International Journal of Dermatology 2002;41:21-27.

Computer enhanced images show how a person would look at age 60 if she smoked.