The use of anti-aging skin care products continues to rise each year; it is not unreasonable to want to continue looking youthful for as long as possible when you consider how much longer most of us are living! This group of beauty products generally works by enabling the synthesis of collagen, the main protein of connective tissue in animals and the most abundant in our body; almost 25 percent of the protein in skin is actually collagen. Collagen is a member of another family of substances that aid in reducing the signs of ageing. called antioxidants, they help flush out toxins from the body and help reduce the signs of aging.

You probably know many anti-oxidants by name, including vitamin C, the use of which is still, even now, hotly debated in the science and nutrition community. Skin care treatments that are based on vitamin C, pose the problem of becoming oxidized themselves as they come into contact with air during their usage.

Manufacturers are trying alternative skin care treatments to vitamin C that do not have this oxidization problem or cost as much to produce. Unfortunately the anti-oxidant products used to replace vitamin C are not as effective but as vitamin E and lipoic acid can both have the same effect; this is not too much of a problem.

Vitamin E is found in the blood and is an antioxidant that is also used to increase the body's defenses against other health problems; there is some evidence to show it helps prevent diseases including cancer. On the other hand, lipoic acid or alpha-lipoic acid is necessary for energy production which keeps us alive; it is also able to help reduce and restore the skin's aging process.

Phytochemicals form the other category of anti-aging skin care products which are special chemicals that are extracted from plants with a variety of that are used in skin care today. A secondary but more important use of phytochemicals is the effect they have on the prevention of some strains of cancer; for instance:

<ul> <li>Cancer of the Prostate</li> <li>Cancer that attacks the Breast</li> <li>Colon Cancer</li> </ul>

All of which are on the increase globally.

Surprisingly, the group of vitamins; B5, B6, and B12 have also shown that they can be used to help reduce the effects of ageing. Although the area of anti-ageing skin care products is huge, more is being learnt about the whole ageing process and about natural products that can reduce the effects it has on our bodies as well as our skin. A great deal about the aging process has already been learned and the products available today are already far more advanced than ten years ago; there is still a long way to go however, before methods that successfully reduce the effects of age are commonplace.

The amount of research going on in this field will undoubtedly bring results in time, hopefully bringing down the cost of these anti-ageing skin care products in addition to increasing their reliability. Scientific research into anti-aging products is still in the early stages but they should never be relied upon; fortunately there is a number of natural anti-aging regimes that can be carried out that do not rely on science. Natural methods are known, but few people actually follow them; what proportion of the population actually eats healthily, takes plenty of exercise, drink sufficient water and obtain restful and regular sleep?