Page 16 - Cosmetic Facial Acupuncture Booklet

This is important because declining muscle mass leads to a reduction in the body's ability
to process extra calories and, in turn, contributes to the natural increase in body fat that is
experienced with advancing age. This excess body weight, particularly when accumulated
around the belly, can lead to several conditions that have deleterious effects upon general
health as well as upon the appearance of skin: inflammation, increased insulin resistance
and, consequently, a rise in blood sugar levels.

Finally, exercise can also be helpful as a means of reducing stress which, as we will see
in the next section, can, of itself, advance the appearnace of aging when consistently in
excess of normal levels.

Given such numerous benefits, exercise must be accepted as an essential part of any
optimized skin-care program and should ideally integrate some sort of resistance
training, for the maintenance or enhancement of lean muscle mass, with an aerobic
component for the reduction and maintenance of body fat.

Of course, the extent to which such routines can be integrated by any individual into
his or her lifestyle on a consistent basis and over the course of a lifetime will vary,
however, it is in just such consistency and long-term application that the key to accessing
at least some of the related benefits is to be found.

It is obvious that any sort of exercise will be more beneficial than none at all so striving
to select a minimum of one enjoyable physical activity and committing to its practice
regularly for 20-30 minutes, 3 times per week should be a very basic goal.

Exercise in the news

The benefits of regular exercise for skin health were dramatically demonstrated through
the results of a study undertaken at McMaster University by researcher Dr. Mark
Tarnopolsky and his associates. As reported in the Hamilton Spectator of April 24, 2014:

McMaster study shows exercise preserves your skin

… [R]esearchers set a group of sedentary volunteers to exercising, after first obtaining
skin samples from their buttocks. The volunteers were aged at 65 or

older and, at the study's start, had normal skin for their age. They began a fairly
straightforward endurance training program, working out twice a week by jogging or
cycling at a moderately strenuous pace, equivalent to at least 65 percent of their
maximum aerobic capacity for 30 minutes. This continued for three months. At the end of
that time, the researchers again biopsied the volunteers' skin.