Washington, Oct 05: Wanna have vibrant and glowing skin throughout your life without a facelift or major surgical procedure?
"Avoid the sun, put down that cigarette and don't drink too much coffee," says Dr Greg Branham, director of facial plastic surgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine and a SLU Care physician.



"What you do now will affect the way you look down the road," he adds.



Branham said that he is noticed in his practice that younger people are starting to get cosmetic surgery or other services. In some cases, these procedures could have been avoided or at least postponed, had the patient taken better care of his or her skin.

"It's important for people to realise that the more you maintain your skin, especially when you're in your 20s and 30s, the less you'll have to overhaul when you get older," Branham says. "So get on a skin care programme now, and you can hold off on the major cosmetic procedures later."


Branham gave the following advice for people who want to stay young looking. Get enough sleep, eat healthy, limit caffeine, avoid the sun and above all quit smoking.

"Smoking causes this breakdown and decreases the blood supply to the skin," Branham said. And when smokers pucker their lips, guess what happens? "Over time, those lines will stay around," he added.

"For women, this causes the lipstick to bleed down into these lines." Nevertheless, for those patients, who do opt for surgery, Branham said the good news is that techniques have been refined over the last 10 years that give patients more choices and better outcomes.
Bureau Report