Poor skin cells. It appears we’ve been giving them a tough time
for making us look older when, as it turns out, it’s not all
their fault. A new study from the University of Michigan Medical
School says that what surrounds the cells plays a role in aging
too. During the study, a research team found that when they
added filler to the fiber-filled area that surrounds skin cells
called the extracellulal matrix (or ECM), the cells acted
younger than they were. Twenty one volunteers in their 80s had
filler injected into the skin on their buttocks’ and after three
months, they found that their skin cells started to produce more
collagen, while their actual skin grew thicker. "This shows that
skin cells in elderly people have the capacity to respond
robustly in a very positive way to alterations in the mechanical
property of their environment," says senior study author Gary
Fisher, Ph.D. "We still need to know more about how cells sense
their environment, but in general it appears we have made a real
difference in th