Getting Stretch Marks Can Be Avoided Naturally

2008-05-19 Word Count: 463 Category: Beauty

We must look into the skin to really understand what stretch marks are.
The skin of composed of a connective network formed by elastin and collagen. The main thing to understand is that elastin is a protein that allows our skin to be stretched to a certain degree and then snaps back to normal. Once stretch marks have appeared it actually means that the elastin has been damaged.
Scars are what replace normal skin after an "injury"(any type of damage to the skin). Stretch marks are built by the body to quickly reconnect collagen and elastin skin fibres. When a stretch mark is created the skin is torn because of an inability to withstand stretching. The appearance of a stretch mark on the skin, implies the degeneration of the skin network and its components in between the outermost and second layer of your skin. A stretch mark is a scar that is not actually on the surface of your skin, but in between your first and second layer of skin.
Now we must understand what's happening at the area of the elastin fibres and collagen network. Elastin Fibers are an important part of the skin network. Elastin fibers can be pulled to grow up to 1.5 times their size and then once untensed can move back to the original size. But when the "stretching of the skin", snaps back, it may leave what we call a stretch mark.
The Formation of Stretch Marks
Tissue damage, which is what stretch marks really are, stimulate fibrocytes and induces the mitosis of fibroblasts.
This process of mitosis may leave you with a group of stretch marks instead of just one. stretched skin is not the sole reason one can have stretch marks. One may end up with "stretch marks" because of four factors.
* Mechanical factors linked to skin's fragility: This means weight increase, pregnancy, growth. Endocrine factors due to malfunction of the pituitary-hypothalamic complex. This means that there is a disregulation of cortisol (hypercortisolemia) that triggers the degradation of the collagen network.
* Clinical factors: local or systemic treatments with corticoids.
* Metabolic factors: such as glycation or sugar metabolism disorders which inhibit the biosynthesis activity of fibroblasts and non-enzymatic glycosylation, the Maillard reaction, leading to cross-links in proteins such as in collagen between the amino-acids arginine and lysine that reduces skin's elasticity.
It is important to keep in mind that stretch mark do not only appear because of weight and growth reasons, they appear for hormonal and external reasons also. The reasons are many, but the result is one; a discolored, long line under your skin that is just as hard to remove as any other scar no matter what type of stretch marks removal you use.

This free Beauty article is brought to you by http://www.articlevista.com

Most stretch mark products swear that they know how to prevent stretch marks (www.stretchmarkstreatment.com/prevent/), but that isn't always true. However there is an amazing product that contains biological enzymes for stretch marks treatment capable of eliminating and erasing those unattractive scars.