Estrogen and Hormonal Therapy for Skin Aging

It is a commonly known fact, that skin aging happens dramatically after the age of 50. This is mainly due to changes in our hormonal system, especially in women. Post menopause, a woman's body produces lesser estrogen. Estrogen has been found to show drastic effect on the skin aging. Research has confirmed that estrogen affects the skin thickness, skin wrinkling and skin moisture. The human skin is a unique organ which protects the body, helps control temperature and also helps in sexual attraction. Skin aging mainly affects the look and feel of skin, and hence, people aim to reverse it. Estrogen and hormonal treatments are one of the many methods of preventing, if not reversing, skin aging. Although it must be kept in mind that hormonal treatments do carry with it a risk of cancer. Estrogen and other hormonal therapies involve: 1. Hormone Replacement Therapy: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is usually prescribed after the age of 50 and uses natural estrogens such as 17-beta-estradiol. In USA for e.g. conjugated equine estrogen is prescribed. Hormone replacement therapy carries with it a risk of serious complications such as endometrial cancer. The risk often reduced by the addition of small quantities of progestogens in the treatment.rn2. Topical Estrogen Treatment: There have been many studies which have demonstrated that use of topical estrogen have shown significant improvement in skin quality. Overall, they noticed that there was amelioration in the elasticity of the skin, decrease in wrinkle size, and increased skin moisture. The safety of this treatment is still a arguable topic and further research is being carried out to weigh the long-term dangers of such therapy. However, for short term (less than 5 years) this treatment could provide sufficient relief to skin aging.rn3. Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs): They are medicines which work with greater selectivity towards the estrogen receptors only in certain tissues of the body. It is due to this selectivity that SERMs are gaining importance and are being researched more, as they will be much more safer to use. Certain natural products from plants have shown selective estrogen receptor modulation. These molecules have been labelled as phytoestrogens. Overall, these molecules have shown greater affinity for the beta estrogen receptors. Other studies have shown that daidzein and genistein seem to stimulate healing of aged skin. To summarize, hormonal treatments have been useful for post-menopausal treatments of aging skin. The skin being an estrogen responsive tissue does develop differently under hormonal therapies. Although, it is true that hormonal replacement therapy is too risky to be utilized for just healing skin, other topical treatments are finding use. Also, newer drugs and molecules are being researched from both, natural sources as well as from synthetic chemistry, in order to get higher selectivity, as well as get fewer side effects. In the future, it could be possible to just take a pill or rub an ointment to see healing of cosmetic aging. Reference Estrogen treatments for skin aging at PharmaXChange.info