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.

Zombie cells can spread — and age all your organs

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 because it suggests that senescent cells in the skin — an organ not typically associated with aging, beyond wrinkles — might be driving broader, systemic aging processes,” one of the study’s lead authors, João Passos, Ph.D., said.

This means even worse news for sunbathers. “If you get an hour of exposure to the sun, just one hour, you get more of these zombie cells,” Goldberg warned.

Wearing SPF is key — it not only prevents skin cancer and stops skin from looking leathery, but studies show it can actually prevent the accumulation of these senescent cells. In fact, Goldberg says those last two points are linked.

“Your skin starts looking weathered and terrible because of the damage that’s being caused, and part of that is the formation of these senescent cells,” he said. “So it’s not just that your skin is looking bad. It’s now secreting stuff into your body that’s making the rest of you unhealthy.”

He also suggests taking senolytics, a type of drug that can clear senescent cells. He’s a fan of Fisetin, a plant flavonol that can be found in strawberries and supplements.

The gut-brain-skin axis — and how your skin can make you more depressed

Trillions of bacteria live in and on the human body, making up our microbiomes. Our skin, brains and guts all have their own separate microbiomes, but they work together in a triad known as the “gut-brain-skin axis,” Goldberg explained.

“Having a healthy bunch of bacteria on your skin and maintaining that actually impacts your gut health, which impacts your brain health,” he said, citing conditions like depression and seizure disorders.

“When someone expresses symptoms of depression, you wouldn’t look at them and say, ‘Well, you really should take better care of your skin’ — but actually, that’s exactly what needs to be done,” he said.

Goldberg stressed that regular hygiene and moisturization are both important tools, as is how you eat.

“A diet that is high in plant fibers and low in sugar, processed food and animal protein encourages good bacteria to grow in the intestines,” he said, suggesting probiotics from fermented and cultured foods like yogurt and kimchi.

Oxidative stress: a driver of cancer and Alzheimer’s

“The third way that skin and internal health are very related is oxidative stress,” Goldberg said, describing it as “the pollution that your body produces.”

While most of that oxidative stress is produced internally, it can also be caused by external factors like food, smoking, the sun and air pollution.

“Our skin, by far, is exposed to the most amount of oxidative stress,” he added.

That can lead to a host of issues, from skin aging and sleep problems to heart disease, kidney disease and cancer. It even plays a role in neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Goldberg pointed to a 2022 study that found that inflammatory skin disorders and skin barrier dysfunction can lead to brain dysfunction because of inflammatory proteins in the body that make their way to the brain.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of California San Francisco showed that moisturizing your skin could have noticeable benefits for brain aging.

In their study, a group of adults age 58 to 95 were tasked with moisturizing their bodies twice a day. After a month, their blood was measured for proteins linked to age-related inflammatory diseases. Their levels matched those of people in their 30s.

In addition to moisturizing, Goldberg says getting antioxidants is also must for fighting oxidative stress.

You can get them in your diet through foods like walnuts, berries, carrots, tomatoes, artichokes and dark chocolate. They’re also available in supplement form, his favorite being GliSODin.