How your skin may be hurting your health from worsening dementia risk to aging your heart

If you’re not taking proper care of your skin, one doctor warns, looking bad is the least of your worries.“Most people think it’s skin deep — the skin is really its own thing, and your health is totally separate,” Toronto-based plastic surgeon Dr.Cory Goldberg told The Post.Or, he said, they might think the condition of their skin is just an indicator of what’s going on inside — for example, looking pale can be a sign of something more serious.“But it’s much, much more than that.

The skin actually drives health,” he insisted.“In the past few years, as more and more evidence has come forward, it is clear that the skin is not just an indicator — it is an absolute driver.

And it is the strongest and most important driver of aging that I can identify.”According to Goldberg, there are three main ways that your skin health can majorly impact the rest of your body, playing a role in everything from cancer to depression to Alzheimer’s.And taking steps like wearing sunscreen and moisturizing won’t just keep you looking younger — they can actually keep your body and brain younger, too.Senescent cells — often referred to as “zombie cells” — develop everywhere in the body, including the skin.They’re a major factor in aging.“The reason they’re called zombie cells is because they don’t duplicate,” Goldberg explained.

“They stop replicating and they release all these really inflammatory, toxic mediators.”But they don’t just stay where they start: They spread, traveling elsewhere in the body and causing issues there, too.“They actually age your organs.So aging in the skin will age your heart, your liver, and your kidney directly [because of] things getting released into the blood.”A Mayo Clinic study published in October confirmed just that, finding that senescent cells in the skin can impact other organs including the brain, possibly contributing to physical and cognitive decline.“This discovery is significant becau...