Metabolic disorders

Metabolic disorders may result in the deposition of excess materials in the dermis and thus cause disease. Uric-acid salts are deposited in gout, calcium salts in calcinosis, lipids in xanthomatosis, an abnormal protein in amyloidosis, mucin in myxedema, and porphyrins in porphyria. The appearances of the skin are usually sufficiently characteristic to be diagnostic.

A metabolic disorder that dramatically affects the skin is porphyria, an enzyme defect that causes hemoglobin precursors, or porphyrins, to accumulate in the skin. Porphyrins are abnormally sensitive to long wavelength ultraviolet light. The accumulation of porphyrins results in severe sun sensitivity, with blistering, increased skin fragility, and scarring on the areas exposed to light. The most common form, porphyria cutanea tarda, is usually caused by a combination of a hereditary enzyme defect and chronic alcoholism.

Aging and the skin

More than one-third of persons over 65 years of age have skin problems. Prevalent in the elderly are such common skin conditions as fungal infections, excessive dryness, various benign tumours, seborrheic dermatitis, seborrheic warts, solar keratoses, and hirsutism. Many age-related skin disorders previously viewed as inevitable accompaniments of advancing age are now known to be remediable.

Skin may age much faster than the rest of the body because of environmental effects, especially sunlight. A fair-skinned woman who habitually sunbathes, for example, may have a senile skin at age 40, whereas her coeval who spends most of her time indoors may not. The predominant features of the aging skin include skin laxity leading to wrinkles, dryness, itching, increased pigmentation, and telangiectasia (i.e., visible dilation of the skin blood vessels). Moles, large seborrheic warts, and small hemangiomas (de Morgan’s spots) are more common among whites, while small black warts (dermatosis papulosa nigra) of the upper chest and face and tiny white spots (idiopathic guttate hypomelanosis) are more common among blacks.

There is no evidence that the rate of reproduction of epidermal cells slows with age. There are, however, marked degenerative changes in the connective tissue, both elastic and collagenous, that cause wrinkling and loss of elasticity. So-called rejuvenating cosmetic skin preparations are ineffective, although simple emollients may provide temporary suppleness. Avoiding excessive exposure to sunlight and using sunblocks, if adopted early in life, should retard the aging process and reduce the incidence of skin cancers. None of these treatments, however, does more than slow the onset of senescence in the skin, and those who survive into the 10th decade of life have age-related changes that are largely independent of their earlier life-styles.