Skin, hair, nail show stress level

Skin, hair, nail show stress level
11 Nov 2007, 1125 hrs IST,PTI

NEW YORK: Feeling stressed? Your skin, hair and nails can show it as they're the external indicators.

While everyone knows that stress can take a toll on a person physically and psychologically, researchers in the United States have carried out a study and found that it also can lead to dermatological problems, like acne, brittle nails or even hair loss, the ScienceDaily reported.

"When a person becomes stressed, the level of the body's stress hormone (cortisol) rises. This in turn causes an increase in oil production, which can lead to oily skin, acne and other related skin problems.

"Stress can aggravate the skin and trigger unexpected flare-ups that, in effect, create more stress for patients," lead researcher Dr Flor A. Mayoral of the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine was quoted as saying.

Dr Mayoral and his fellow researchers came to the conclusion after analysing a study, involving 27 medical, dental and pharmacy students.

The researchers examined how periods of higher stress impacted the skin's response to repeated stripping of cellophane tape on the subjects' forearms vs. periods of lower stress (such as after returning from winter vacation).

They found that it took longer for the skin to recover from the minimally invasive tape stripping during periods of perceived higher stress than during less stressful periods.

"This study's the first of its kind to suggest what dermatologists anecdotally have known for years -- that psychological stress adversely affects the normal functions of the skin.

"While the subjects in this study did not have any pre-existing skin conditions, I'd suspect that people with skin conditions such as eczema or psoriasis would have been more adversely affected by this experiment," he said.