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Introduction
Cutaneous aging is a continuous process involving intrinsic aging -a universal
and inevitable alteration attributed to the passage of time -and extrinsic aging—the
superposition over intrinsic aging of changes attributed to chronic solar exposure and
other environmental factors, among them, smoking.
1-3
Skin alterations occurring with age lead to a gradual physiologic decline. The
main alterations in skin appearance associated with aging include dryness, peeling,
wrinkles, laxity, and a variety of benign neoplasias.
1
Chronic solar exposure causes
serious skin alterations that vary considerably among individuals, certainly reflecting
innate differences in the vulnerability and reparative capacity for solar damage.
1
According to 1998 World Health Organization (WHO) data, about 30% of the
world population smoke (48% of men vs 12% of women). More than 30% of deaths
by cancer are related to smoking. Until 2000, about 4 million people per year died
from diseases related to cigarettes, and if nothing is done to stop people from
smoking, WHO estimates that smoking will kill 8.4 million people per year by 2020.
4
Tabagism is associated with several serious diseases, such as lung cancer,
emphysema, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, and stroke, among others.
5
Tabagism
also provokes skin modification. Blood-flow alteration leading to temperature drop
can be observed immediately after smoking.
6
Collagenous and elastic-fiber
degradation
7
constitute another important modification related to tabagism. The
increase in estradiol hydroxylation
6
and inhibition of the aromatase enzyme,
8
which
converts androgens to estrogens, lead to a relative hypo-estrogenic state, associated
with dry and atrophied skin in women.
To evaluate facial wrinkles, Daniell in 1971
9
created a score (from I to VI)
according to the depth, width, and quantity of wrinkles situated at the outside corner
of the eye. Model
10,11
in 1985 defined clinical criteria to characterize “smoker's face”
features: prominent wrinkles, prominence of bone outlines, and atrophied and
opaque skin. The presence of one feature was enough to characterize smoker’s face.
Learning about the cutaneous alterations associated with smoking can be one
more important tool to help people stop smoking.
This study intends to evaluate the influence of tabagism in the formation of
facial wrinkles, in a Brazilian population that is quite heterogeneous (with respect to
skin types); according to 1996 IBGE
12
(Geographic and Statistic Brazilian Institute)
data 54,36% of Brazilian population declared himself as "white" (skin phototype I-III),
40,11% as "mullatto" (skin phototype IV and V), 4,93% as "black" (skin phototype VI);
where dark skin phototype (by Fitzpatrick’s classification)
13
has a high prevalence,
and with intense solar exposure the whole year.
Methods
Subjects
Three hundred and one subjects between ages 25 and 86 of both genders
(191 women and 110 men) participated in the study. Subjects were patients and
patients’ companions, recruited from the ophthalmology and the dermatology clinics
at the Clementino Fraga Filho Hospital (CFFH) of the Federal University of Rio de
Janeiro, and from the dermatology clinic of the Military Policy Hospital. The project
was approved by the ethics research committee at CFFH.
Exposure variables
The subjects answered a questionnaire containing questions about smoking
habits, tobacco load, history of solar exposure, occupation related to solar exposure,
age, sex, skin phototype, weight, height, weight loss or increases, coffee
consumption, alcoholic drink consumption, sports participation, sunscreen use,