Well, hello, hello, guys, you're listening to Beauty Bites with Dr. K., Secrets of a Plastic Surgeon.

It's time for a five-minute Friday,

and it's so smoky and ashy in Los Angeles from all of the fires going on on all of the West

Coast, and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the increase in air pollution over the years.

This really is having major effects on human skin and we

are actually lucky to be wearing masks right now because the amount of volatile organic

compounds, oxides and particulate matter in the air is really incredible. Over the years

we get exposed with our skin to ultraviolet radiation, environmental air pollutants, and sun.

And these are the things that are really going to cause skin to age and change much faster than it should in normal natural condition.

So, sunscreen is one thing, but anti-pollution is a whole other thing.

Remember, your human skin acts as a biologic shield against oxidative chemical and physical air pollutants,

but prolonged repetitive exposure to high levels of these pollutants, like volatile organic compounds,

and urban dust, basically, is going to age your skin profoundly

people who live closer to freeways and cities and in urban environmental areas where there are

toxins from chemicals and production from factories are having changes in their skin at faster, higher, worse rates than

people who live in fresh air, by the beaches, in the countryside.

The closure of the skin to air pollutants has been associated with skin aging and even inflammatory

or allergic skin conditions like atopic dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, and acne.

Remember that air pollutants may induce severe interference of normal functions of skin lipids

and may cause early premature DNA damage to the DNA and to the skin proteins of the human skin

via oxidation changes.

These cause skin changes that are going to make your skin thinner,

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