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Golf can be a good investment for the health, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. The death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, which correspond to a 5 year increase in life expectancy. Golfers with a low handicap are the safest.

It is a fully known fact that exercise is good for the health, but the expected health gains of particular activities are still largely unknown. A team of researchers from Karolinska Institutet has now presented a study of the health effects of golf – a low-intensity form of exercise in which over 600,000 Swedes engage.

The study, that is published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, is based on data from 300,000 Swedish golfers and shows that golf has beneficial health effects. The debt of nature rate amongst golfers is 40 per cent lower than the rest of the population, which equates to an increased life expectancy of five years.

Professor Anders Ahlbom, who has led the study through Bahman Farahmand is not surprised at the result, as he believes that there are several aspects of the game that are proved to be profit for the health.

"A round of golf means being outside for four or five hours, walking at a fixed pace for six to seven kilometres, something which is known to be good for the health," he says. "People play golf into old age, and there are also positive social and psychological aspects to the game that can be of help."

The study does not rule out that other factors than the actual playing, such to the degree that a generally well lifestyle, are also behind the lower death rate observed amongst golfers. However, the researchers believe it is likely that the playing of the game in itself has a significant impact on health.

Golf players have a lower dissolution rate inattentive of sex, age and social group. The effect is greater for golfers from blue-collar professions than for those from white-collar professions. The lowest rates are found in the dispose of players with the lowest handicap (i.e. the best golfers).

"Maintaining a low handicap involves playing a lot, so this supports the idea that it is largely the game itself that is upright for the soundness," says Professor Ahlbom.

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The old saying, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," has scientifically been proven true. A study in a recent issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), institute that variations in eyebrow shape, eyelid position, and wrinkles significantly impact how your facial expressions, and subsequent mood, are perceived by others.

"A key complaint of those seeking facial plastic surgery is that people always tell them they look tired, even though they do not feel tired," said John Persing, MD, ASPS member and study co-author. "We found that variations in eyebrow contour, drooping of the upper eyelid, and wrinkles may be conveying facial expressions that don’t necessarily match how patients are feeling."

In the study, a standardized photo of a juvenile face was digitally altered to change a number of variables, including eyebrow shape and position; upper and lower eyelid position; upper eyelid drooping and removal of excess skin; and facial wrinkles. Twenty health care workers were given 16 photos and asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 5, the presence of seven expressions or emotions: tiredness, happiness, surprise, rage, sadness, disgust, and fear. The results for each altered photo were compared with scores from the original unaltered photo. Overall, eyebrow shape had a greater influence than absolute position on perceived mood.

Tiredness

Drooping of the upper eyelid was the biggest indicator of tiredness, according to the research. Simulating skin removal of the upper eyelid, as performed in some eyelid procedures, if it were not that not correcting accompanying eyelid ptosis (drooping), resulted in an increase in the perception of tiredness (and sadness). Photos that included an overall elevation of the eyebrows or an increase in the remoteness between the eyebrow and upper eyelid also increased the perception of tiredness.

Anger & Disgust

Lowering or slanting the inner corner of the eyebrows towards the nose, as well as adding forehead winkles significantly increased the perceived facial expressions of anger and disgust.

Fear & Surprise

Raising the upper eyelids produced an increase in the perception of surprise and fear. Also, raising the outer corner of the eyebrows produced an enlarge in the perception of surprise.

Sadness

Raising the inner corner of the eyebrows away from the nose was perceived as a sad facial expression.

Happiness

Happiness was perceived by raising the lower eyelid and the presence of crow’s feet, which, according to the study, seem to simulate the cheek elevation that occurs with smiling.

"The eyes and their related structures nonverbally communicate a wide range of expressions that are universal to all people," said Dr. Persing. "Therefore facial expression should be a factor in how patients and their plastic surgeons single out various rejuvenation procedures. in the same manner with our findings show, even the slightest manner can succeed in obtaining ocean changes in how others perceive us."

According to ASPS statistics, more than 241,000 eyelid surgeries, 43,000 forehead lifts and 118,400 facelifts were performed in 2007.

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Fine wrinkles, deeper creases, saggy areas around the mouth and neck - the sights in the reflector that make baby boomers wince - are not inevitable. They result from a structural breakdown inside the skin that some existing treatments effectively counteract by the agency of stimulating the growth of new, youthful collagen, University of Michigan scientists say.

The researchers report an emerging picture of collagen collapse and possible renewal, based on more than a decade of studies, in the May issue of Archives of Dermatology.

The article draws on dozens of studies after the seasonably 1990s, conducted primarily by U-M dermatologists, to explain why three types of available skin treatments are effective: topical retinoic acid, carbon dioxide laser resurfacing and injections of cross-linked hyaluronic acid.

These treatments all improve the skin’s complexion – and its ability to resist bruises and tears – by stimulating new collagen. Collagen is a key supporting substance, plentiful in young skin, that’s produced in the sub-surface layer of skin known as the dermis. The U-M findings show that the breakdown of the dermis’ firm, youthful structure is a very important factor in skin aging – a plenteous more straightforward thing to fix than genetic factors that others theorize may be involved.

“Fibroblasts are not genetically shot,” says John J. Voorhees, M.D., F.R.C.P., chair of the Department of Dermatology at the U-M Medical School and the article’s senior author. Fibroblast cells in the skin are the explanation producers of collagen.

“We have shown that if you make more collagen go in, it provides an environment in which fibroblasts recover and make more collagen.”

Voorhees and co-authors Gary J. Fisher, Ph.D., U-M professor of dermatology, and James Varani, Ph.D., U-M professor of microbiology and immunology and pathology, hope the findings will help people cause to become clever decisions amid the hype of the multi-billion-dollar anti-aging products activity. Fisher directs the U-M Photoaging and Aging Research Program.

“We want to educate clinicians about what’s been found, and what it means in conditions of how we may improve the advent of men,” says Voorhees, the Duncan and Ella Poth Distinguished Professor of Dermatology at U-M.

Young vs. old skin

Collagen making up and collapse takes place in the dermis or inner skin, the thicker, firm layer of derm that lies beneath the paper-thin outer skin or epidermis, much of the same kind with a mattress lies beneath a sheet. Collagen consists of proteins that make up a supporting structure surrounding the skin cells. In youthful skin, collagen is firm, taut and abundant, like a new mattress. In older skin, the collagen structure begins to fall away, says Voorhees.

Just as a foam mattress over time becomes flatter in places and creased as its structure breaks down, aging skin begins to sag and wrinkle when its collagen is diminished and fragmented. The cycle of events involved in collagen loss is complicated.

As skin ages, reactive oxygen species, associated with many aspects of aging, lead to increased production of the enzyme collagenase, which breaks down collagen. Then fibroblasts, the critical players in firm, healthy skin, lose their normal stretched state. They collapse, and then more breakdown enzymes are produced. People in their 80s have four times more broken collagen than people in their 20s.

“What it’s doing is dissolving your skin,” Voorhees says. “What you’ve got is a vicious cycle. You have to interrupt it, or aging skin is just going downhill.”

In the elderly, in whom the dermis has lost two-thirds or more of its youthful thickness through collagen loss, skin tears and bruises easily. Collagen-building interventions thus have potential for reducing basic health problems such as bed sores, in addition to improving appearance.

A growing body of evidence

The U-M researchers base their conclusions on past studies in which they have explored why certain anti-aging treatments are effective. A 2007 study looked at Restylane, marketed as a dermal filler, and found that injections of the product caused fibroblasts to put forth, promoting new collagen, and also limited the breakdown of collagen.

In another 2007 study, the U-M team pure lotions containing retinol, a form of vitamin a & d A found in many skin-care products, and found it significantly reduced wrinkles and skin roughness in elderly skin by promoting new collagen. Other U-M studies have shown why some laser treatments work and some less powerful ones do not. Carbon dioxide laser resurfacing is effective because it removes the aging dermis; in the three-week regrowth process, new, young collagen is produced.