SKIN AGING AND SMOKING

Facial wrinkling is a marker of skin ageing. The association between s moking and facial wrinkling has been previously studied. Nevertheheles s, there are no reports assessing the role of sun exposure and smoking in an area with a great proportion of sunny days. Smoking habits were investigated in 282 healthy individuals. Facial wrinkles were measure d accoring to the Daniell scale at the external canthus. A logistic re gression model was developed controlling for age, sex, sun exposure, s moking habit and searching for the interaction between sun exposure an d smoking. A statistically significant risk was found for smoking habi t (OR=3, 1; 95% CL 1.28-7.76; p=0.008), sun exposure (OR=1.50; 95% Cl 1.25-1.80; p=0.05), and age (OR=1.18; 95% Cl 1.13-1.23; p=0.024) for f acial wrinkling. These results show the evidence of an accelerated ski n ageing in smokers. A clear explanation given to smokers could be a u seful strategy to persuade them to leave smoking.