5 Ways INFLAMMATION Is Secretly Aging Your Skin After 40

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]There's something aging your skin right now and you probably can't even see it.

[00:00:04]It's called chronic inflammation. And today I'm going to show you exactly what it is, why it's happening to almost everyone over the age of 40, and most importantly, what you can actually do about it. Hi, I'm Dr. Mir Kum. I'm a board-certified facial plastic surgeon and founder and creator of CarMD Skin.

[00:00:22]If you like topics like these about anti-aging and skin health, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss my next videos. So, when it comes to inflammation, let's start with the basics. There are two types of inflammation. The first kind, acute inflammation. So, whether it's a pimple, a sunburn, a scar, that kind of inflammation is healthy and actually beneficial. The second kind is very different, chronic inflammation. And that is when the same alarm system gets triggered but it never shuts off. It's just running in the background all the time. And that has serious effects on your skin aging. I hear it all the time from my patients that somewhere around parmenopause and menopause late 40s early 50s your skin it just changed. And and if this is happening almost overnight you're not alone. Trust me I hear this all the time. So it's not a coincidence. Here's what's actually happening. Estrogen and collagen are directly linked because estrogen has a direct effect on collagen production and degradation. So if you look at this graph here, you see that the levels over time mirrors the estrogen curve almost exactly. Things decline gradually through the 20s and 30s, but then you hit parameopause and menopause and then the floor drops. Now, here's the part that most people don't know. Your entire adult life, estrogen was quietly protecting your skin from inflammation.

[00:01:42]When it drops, you lose both the collagen stimulation as well as the inflammatory protection gone together.

[00:01:50]That's why skin becomes so reactive so suddenly. And I want to say something about this because I feel strongly about it. The research on how menopause affects the female inflammatory response is genuinely frustratingly thin. We truly don't have nearly enough well-designed research on the topic. So, what do you do about it? Right?

[00:02:10]Honestly, this is where the fix isn't a simple hack. It's having a real honest conversation with your doctor about your hormones and what's actually happening to your body. What I can tell you from a skin care standpoint is that the ingredients with the strongest evidence of stimulating collagen are retinol, peptides, and vitamin C are your best tools here. But more on activives a little bit later. Number two, glycation.

[00:02:38]To me, luminous skin is the most fundamental feature of younglook skin.

[00:02:44]That gray cast that you're seeing, that glow that you're missing, that's often caused by glycation. And here's what's happening. When sugar or glucose circulates into the bloodstream, it attaches to proteins, including collagen and elastin. And when that happens, it forms molecules called AES, advanced glycation end products. AES essentially act like staples locking your collagen fibers together. Instead of creating that supple, flexible, light reflecting collagen, they get stiff and your skin stops reflecting light the way it used to. Now, on top of that, AES also trigger an inflammatory response that accelerates the breakdown of collagen.

[00:03:25]Last thing you need is to break down more collagen on top of the natural biological diminishing production of collagen. So, here's the fix. Think about your breakfast. Your breakfast meal sets your blood sugar for literally the entire day. Now, that's important.

[00:03:38]So, this glycemic impact of the high sugar breakfast is greater in the morning than the same food eaten later in the day. So, what does a high glycemic breakfast look like? Well, if you're eating a sweetened yogurt, bagels, flavored coffee, you know, cream and sugar, things that might even feel quote unquote healthy, but they spike your blood sugar is what's causing this issue. What's crazy is these are all the breakfasts that we used to eat, you know, when I was a kid is these sugary cereals and waffles, maple syrup, etc. So, what works better? Protein first.

[00:04:08]Think of it this way. Eggs, plain Greek yogurt, nuts, avocado. You don't have to be perfect. Just shift the ratio and see the difference it makes in your mood and your skin. And from a skin care standpoint, the ingredient that makes the biggest impact is nioinamide.

[00:04:24]Speaking of illuminosity, I named illuminate because I wanted it to reflect the glow that comes from using it. But illuminate incorporates a ton of activives including nyinomide and nyinomide has documented anti- glycation properties, but more on that in a moment. Number three, the compromised skin barrier. We've been hearing a lot about the skin barrier recently, but it is important to understand this because it gives context for a lot of the things that you do for your skin and you shouldn't do for your skin. So if your skin has become chronically reactive, you know that baseline redness, a lot of that is your skin barrier. And when your skin barrier begins to weaken, and it does start to weaken reliably around age 50, it doesn't just have an impact on your skin moisture, it also starts releasing inflammatory proteins called cytoines. Those cytoines don't stay in your skin, they make their way into your bloodstream. They've been linked to Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes. So, think about that for a second. Your skin barrier isn't just cosmetic. It's also one of the biggest contributors to systemic inflammation in the aging body.

[00:05:33]Now, there's a flip side. The same research showed that applying moisturizer twice a day consistently for 30 days measurably reduced those inflammatory markers in the skin. Isn't that interesting? So moisturizing might be one of the most important things you can do, not just for your skin, but for your body. I found that to be fascinating. So here's a specific tip.

[00:05:54]Applying your moisturizer to damp skin within 60 seconds of cleansing is not just hydrating. You're sealing the barrier before it can breach. That's what barrier support skin care is designed to do. And we're going to come back to that in a moment. So let's talk about number four. Cortisol and chronic stress. Now, this can look like puffy face in the morning, adult acne, skin that flares every time life gets hard.

[00:06:17]Does that all sound familiar? You know, a lot of people are experiencing these things, and that's because of cortisol.

[00:06:22]Cortisol is your body's stress hormone, and it's designed as a short burst emergency tool. You know, it's an inflammatory by design. It's it's supposed to help you in a true emergency, and it's okay to have that.

[00:06:33]But the problem is when chronic modern stress keeps cortisol levels elevated constantly, not just in the morning. And over time, elevated cortisol increases oil production, breaks down your skin barrier, and directly degrades collagen.

[00:06:48]So the the saying stress ages your face isn't just a saying. There's a measurable structural damage that comes from chronic exposure to cortisol. Now, I'm not going to tell you to eliminate stress from your life. I get it. Most of us can't fully remove stress from our lives and um we should do everything we can obviously to minimize it. Think of it as less as removing the cause and more as offsetting the damage. So there's two things that are actually backed by evidence. Number one is very specific breathing pattern. Two short inhales through your nose and then one long slow exhale. Okay? So this is one of the fastest ways to bring down your cortisol response. Take 30 seconds several times throughout the day, especially if you're feeling stressed in the moment to help reduce your blood cortisol levels. Another thing that has a impact on this is morning light before 10:00 a.m. So getting natural light into your eyes early in the morning anchors your circadium cortisol rhythm. When that rhythm is set, cortisol peaks and drops on schedule instead of staying elevated all day. This is about timing your body's own recovery system. So neither of these tools are about, you know, meditation or taking a bath. These are specific physiologic ways that can have a direct impact on cortisol. They work. They've been studied and they're free. All right. So number five, I see this with patients all the time. Someone comes in and their skin is clearly inflamed, reactive, red, sensitive, breaking out. They show me their extensive skin care and first thing they ask is, "What should I add to my routine?" Nothing. You need to take things away. When you layer too many highdose activives on your skin on top of each other and you do this, you know, once or twice a day every day, you're repeatedly stripping your skin barrier and really compromising your overall skin. This triggers inflammation. The cruel irony here is that the harder you try to fight aging with your routine, the faster you can age if you're doing too much. Now, I want to be clear about something because some of you might be saying, "Dr. carum. The trifecta has retinol and vitamin C and alpha hydroxy acids all in one system. Aren't you contradicting yourself? And you always sit here and say how important it is to be on retinol and vitamin C and all these other things. Well, the problem isn't the activives. The problem is the unmanaged activives and how aggressive the doses are without anything calming the response. So when I developed the caramed trifecta, all of those activives are built in the system, but they're also built around micro doing. Micro doing the activives is very different than getting full strength all at once.

[00:09:29]Even the glycolic acid that's in the cleanser, the alpha hydroxy acid, isn't on your skin for long periods of time.

[00:09:36]It's on there just for seconds, then you rinse it off. You're chipping away as opposed to getting a massive response.

[00:09:41]The vitamin C in quench is delivered in three different stable forms that are gentler on the skin than straight ascorbic acid which is found in most vitamin C creams. And illuminate has retinol and nyinomide together in addition to ceramides. You know the oils that help reduce the skin's inflammation and make you tolerate the retinol even more. And it's also surrounded by peptides and squaline and shea butter and other botanicals that are actively calming the inflammatory response as those activives work. So these are all design elements that went into the caramed trifecta to be able to allow people to have both anti-inflammation and active skin care that has a direct impact on all the skin aging changes that occur. So you get the results without the damage. That's the big difference. And that's why people who start the trifecta rarely get off of it and they've been on it for 2 3 4 years consistently using it every single day is because their skin can tolerate it and they're seeing the changes happening day after day. But if your skin is already inflamed, the smartest thing you can do is just give it a couple weeks to reset. Just cleanser, moisturizer, SPF.

[00:10:48]See what it does when you come back.

[00:10:50]Kind of break the cycle. Then reintroduce things slowly. Your skin will tell what you can handle. It's that simple. So, that's five ways inflammation is aging you and your skin.

[00:11:00]But the good news is every single one of them is addressable and almost everything we covered today is exactly what the trifecta is designed to do. You know, there's a reason why I'm such a strong advocate for it and I'm always trying to get you guys to to see it for yourselves and hopefully experience it for yourselves. All right, to learn more, go ahead and take a look at caramed skin. I hope you guys got a lot out of today. This was a very interesting uh topic both for me to research and to share with you all. If you want to learn more about topics like this, make sure you subscribe to this channel, but also to the Caramed Journal, which is a free newsletter that comes to your email. Share this with some friends. I think most people could benefit from this knowledge. Hit like, comment anything below. I love hearing your comments, interacting with you guys. And until next time, I'm Dr. Dr. Carum.