aging isn't what it used to be for one thing we're living longer than ever back in 1900 the average life expectancy in the

united states was just 47 years today it's 78 years with women living about five years longer than men

we've eradicated many of the infectious diseases that took so many lives a century ago,

and heart disease is now treatable.

But with so many of us sticking around for longer,

we've just begun to understand why our bodies change as we age.

It turns out that the skin can tell us a lot about how well we're aging,

and we're not talking about wrinkles here.

Thanks to major advances in longevity research, we now have a whole new toolbox for analyzing

the skin. And no matter what age we are, we can use that information to take better care of

not just our skin, but our overall health as we grow older. Scientific American custom

media recently sat down with Andrea Meyer, a professor of medicine and director of the Academy

for Healthy Longevity at the National University of Singapore and collaborator with L'Oreal,

the beauty company, to learn more about her work. Andrea, we all know that skin changes as we grow older, but what can it tell us about how

well we're aging? So skin health is a key biomarker of overall longevity, and skin is the

largest organ we have. We very often forget how large it is and how important it is.

It's really reflecting how well we are aging from the insight. You know, there seems to be a lot

of attention and investment in longevity research right now. Why do you think that is? The investment

in longevity is huge at this moment and time.

We see a huge consumer drive and asking for products and for interventions to be healthier for longer.

So it is not only that we have major discoveries in research,

but there's also the consumer drive to really ask to get innovative

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