Does smoking affect your looks?

Great Debates
1

“Next to sun exposure, smoking is the highest factor in wrinkling. Smokers have more wrinkles than people who don’t smoke. Cigarette smoke releases free radicals that break down the vitamin C in the skin and contribute to premature wrinkling. Nicotine also causes small blood vessels and capillaries to contract, diminishing circulation and depriving the skin of nutrients.”

http://litecosmetics.com/tips.htm

“Smoking will add five years to your appearance by increasing facial wrinkles. Smoking also will change the colour of your skin due to nicotine blood vessel constriction.”

http://www.purehealthsystems.ws/beauty-tips.html

"despite weighing less, smokers tend to be pot-bellied with spindly legs.

Smoker’s face was defined as one or more of the following:
a. lines or wrinkles on the face, typically radiating at right angles from the upper and lower lips or corners of the eyes, deeplines on the cheeks, or numerous shallow lines on the cheeks and lower jaw.
b. A subtle gauntness of the facial features with prominence of the underlying bony contours. Fully developed this change gives the face and ‘atherosclerotic’ (sic. A bit like choked up blood vessels) look; lesser changes show as slight sinking of the cheeks. In some cases these changes are associated with a leathery, worn, or rugged appearance.
c. An atrophic, slightly pigmented grey appearance of the skin
d. A plethoric, slightly orange, purple and red complexion different from the purply blue colour of cyanosis or the bloated appearance associated with the pseudo-Cushing’s changes of alcoholism"

http://www.quitsmokinguk.com/vanity_facts.htm#Pot%20Bellies

"Unique to smokers, the condition of smoker’s face is a combination of wrinkles, wierd features, and an oddly colored complexion. Research has shown that smoking acts on the small blood vessels, reducing the blood circulation to the skin. Smokers get more wrinkles, deeper wrinkles, all over their faces because nicotine constricts the tiny capillaries that nourish the skin. Skin that is starved for blood, and therefore for oxygen, tends to develop the signs of smoker’s face. The signs are:
*Extensive wrinkling (crows feet) at the outer edges of the eyes. While normal “crows feet” are soft and shallow, most smokers have deep and prominent wrinkles upward and downward.
*Premature wrinkling. For smokers, middle-age starts in their early 30s as the tell-tale wrinkles around their mouth and eyes begin to appear.
*Lip wrinkling. Smokers also may have wrinkles that radiate outwardly around their lips.
*Skin color. Smokers very often have a yellow grey pallor to their skin. It is often easy to detect whether or not a person is a smoker simply by looking at his or her face.
*Balding. Men who smoke are twice as likely to become bald as are men who do not smoke. Premature graying and thinning of the hair is 3 to 6 times more common in smokers.
*Cobblestone wrinkles. Men smokers can be prone to yet another distinctive feature when they smoke. The backs of their necks may develop so called “cobblestone wrinkles” where the skin looks like a grid of tiny squares.
*Leathery appearance. Slight hollowness of the cheeks, which emphasizes the bony contours of the face and leads to a gaunt appearance, a leathery or worn appearance to the face which may have a grayish tinge.

http://www.askjanice.com/letters/smoking.asp"

I would say yes. I can generaly tell an alcoholic or a smoker from their face. I can almost always tell a smoker by the voice. This would all seem to undermine the myth that smoking is glamorous.

2

Apparently smokers should be sent off to a special colony far far away where their disfiguring affliction can be shielded from the eyes of the world.

3

Or maybe, younger smokers who are keen on not having any of these rather unappealing things happen to them should think twice about keeping up the habit.

For instance, recently I have seen a few women who went to high school with me. At first I thought they couldn’t be the girls I knew in school—they looked so much older than me. But no, they were the same girls. Not aging really well, thanks to smoking.

4

Something else to note as well, regarding smokers, is this particular generalisation… and bear in mind… I’m neither a pro nor anti smoking person. Each to their own… just keep your smoke away from my little baby and you’ll never hear boo out of me…

Anyways… the generalisation is this - by and large, smokers are also far less likely to be an active participant in a sporting persuit of some sort. Indeed, the typical “smoker” lifestyle is one which eschews regular fitness regimes in favour of the “party till ya drop” lifestyle. Now, I know, I know… there are exceptions to the rule… there are smokers who regularly work out and exercise heaps - and in my experience, they’re almost impossible to tell apart from a non smoker (appearance wise).

But I have this saying called “Never Been Fit Syndrome” or N.B.F. Syndrome for short… (and in this instance ‘fit’ means being sporting fit, not good looking fit…) and what happens is that you often see someone who is flushed with the beauty of youth when they’re 20 years old - and they’re partying like they’re never ever gonna grow old or die one day. Slowly, such people tend to do everything “wrong” during their really important years of long term quality of lifestyle - your 20’s. I often see someone who is say 45 years of age, and you can tell, gee they would have been attractive when they were 20 - but 25 years of bad lifestyle and worst of all - 25 years of having Never Been Fit - well they just look a shocker by 45. And smoking is an ingredient to be sure. The nature of nicotine addiction is that it attacks your “survival instincts” - it actually convinces you that to light up another ciggie is actually BETTER for you than getting on a bike and going for a 25 mile ride.

Well… that’s my theory at any rate… smokers tend to fall into the category of N.B.F. Syndrome more so than non-smokers - and as a result, they tend to “oxygenate” their systems far less frequently than non-smokers do - and as a result of THAT - they age less well.

5

Why does the start of every Great Debate have to start with one of these? Are we THAT PC?

6

A lot of variables effect aging. Why add another one if you don’t have to.

We will all get old and wrinkled. Unless you plan on living forever.

Sure, a 40 yo looks younger today, than they did 50 years ago at 40. Hell, the rate we are going at 45 you better not look old. Cos, look out theres 25 year olds. So, don’t even start smoking.

7

Dare I suggest that this is over the top? Most of the links in the OP are to beauty tips columns and newspaper articles, not scientific journals (tho’ I’m sure research has been done). I can’t help thinking that this picture of middle-aged smokers as hideous, leathery, grey-fleshed spectres is exaggerated.

I don’t smoke but I can 't help observing that my smoking friends (age 30s and 40s) don’t have any more wrinkles than the non-smokers. Some of them are still fresh-faced and unlined, others less so, but none of them fits the horror story in the OP.

We all wrinkle in the end - how much and how soon depends, I would imagine, on a range of factors interacting, eg: sun-exposure, heredity, dryness of skin, colour of skin, diet, amount of exercise, alcohol intake, anxiety levels, facial mobility - as well as smoking.

Yes, smokers are probably less likely to exercise, and people who don’t exercise tend to look less than glowing, but this also applies to the overweight, for example.

Smoking should be discouraged because it has been shown to cause lung disease and contribute to heart disease and a number of other disorders. Of course smoking is not glamorous, but it is not the root of all evil either, and portraying smokers in this way is, IMO, more likely to make them irritated and defiant than keen to give up.

Also, ageing is not a moral failing

8

Aging is not a moral failing (to be sure) and not all smokers look the way the OP describes. But some do. Oh boy, some certainly do. It’s something to consider, that’s for sure.

9

It should be pointed out that there’s “5 low-tars a day” smokers and “20+ a day smokers”, who will experience such effects to a different extent. There is still a widespread but unfounded belief that the harmful effects of smoking are nonlinear, ie. that a small amount of smoke has a disproportionately harmful effect.

10

[NB: I realise that there are some nonlinear effects, especially regarding lung irritation and platelet aggregation - my point was merely that this isn’t one of them].

11

As do some NON-smokers…

12

I would like to see one real citation from a non-crap, non-propaganda, non-quackery source for the orginal claims. Of course, there are none, since the claims are all merely lies and quackery.

My smoking great-grandfather, to the end of his long life (he out-lasted the “normal” life expectancy of his generation by a decade), had clear complexion, a hearty physique, and not the least bit of gauntness to his face.

13

There are very many non-smokers who look like the description, too.

14

**

Erm, of course not. Smokers are evil people who deserve every alarmist, over the top characterization that can be mustered.

**

Exactly.

15

What about ‘smoker hair’ on women. You see that stringy, dead hair on women 30+, it’s almost guaranteed they’ve been smoking since high school. Kind of complements that squishy looking, clammy skin.

16

Akimichi Morita and researchers at Nagoya City University Medical School have shown how smoking could upset the body’s mechanism for breaking down old skin and renewing it. “Dermatologists say the finding confirms the long-held view that smoking ages skin prematurely,” New Scientist magazine said today.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/smoking000412.html

SKIN WRINKLING
Skin wrinkling is a well-recognized sign of skinaging. The association between cigarette smokingand premature skin wrinkling has been examined in at least eight studies in the last 25 years9,13,25. Despite methodological problems in some of these investigations, their results point to a positive association between cigarette smoking and premature skin wrinkling. Three of these studies have been particularly well analyzed, with control for important variables such as age, gender, and sun exposure9,19,25. The positive findings in these studies, showing increased wrinkling with increased pack-years of smoking, indicate that cigarette smokingis an independent risk factor for wrinkling. The underlying mechanism may be ischemia in the dermis13.

http://www.arhp.org/healthcareproviders/onlinepublications/clinicalproceedings/cpcurrentsmoking/clinage.cfm?ID=117

These links go into more depth regarding the biological process involved. I guess it depends on whether you want to look and feel like you’re 50 at age 30. Remember, it’s what’s inside that counts. Looks aren’t everything. Real beauty comes from within.

17

I know this doesn’t count as anything towards the debate but I’d like to share anyway.

I smoked for 12 years and a few months after I quit, everyone, and I mean everyone, commented on how great my skin looked. My skin has actual color and depth to it now (it’s been over a year since I quit).

If anyone who is trying to quit needs some encouragement, just wait until you see your new skin.

18

Not a good line for smokers, what with their withins. :smiley:

19

Well…I guess so, if they treat themselves like crap.

I’ve never heard someone have a “smoker’s voice” if they didn’t smoke, though. There’s a certain kind of voice, and cough that only smokers have. And there are these wrinkles around the mouth, (on the upper lip it’s most noticable) that appear on many smokers. I knew one woman who looked OK otherwise, but had those deep wrinkles on her upper lip. From the repetetive action of sucking on the cigs for all those years. Over and over and over again. That’ll do it.

Does everyone who smokes have these things? Of course not. But I rarely see non-smokers with the deep wrinkles on their upper lip (they may be wrinkled, etc., but not especially on their lips more than anywhere else). I’ve never heard a non-smoker have that particular kind of voice, or cough. Just my observation.

20

Lay better odds on them being repeat home-perm casualties.