What do your hand lines say to you, and how do you determine your age from your hand lines?

Doctors may soon be able to tell if you're mistaking your child's age thanks to a new technology developed by scientists in Taiwan. They found a way to look beyond a person's wrinkles to determine the age of their skin, and thus show that person's true age.

As we age, our skin ages due to internal, genetic, and environmental factors such as sunlight. Mixing these effects can tell us that the true age of someone's skin is very difficult, because sunlight can cause premature aging and mask the natural aging process.

Now, researchers have taken the lead in exploring this information. A "virtual biopsy" works by shooting a fast and painless infrared laser pulse at the skin. This penetrates about 0.3 mm through the outermost layer of skin - the epidermis - and into the dermis layer below.

The researchers then create XNUMXD maps of the skin's structure using a microscope to study how laser light interacts with skin cells. This technique is called “harmonic generation biopsy” because it analyzes the second and third harmonics of optical vibrations that increase the frequency of twice or three times the weakness of the original light.

They tested their method on 52 volunteers, pointing lasers at the volunteers' inner forearms, which are usually protected from the sun, so they are only through natural processes.

The researchers found that the size of a specific type of skin cell called basal keratinocytes increases with age. So, by observing these cells, scientists say they can measure the normal age of a person's skin.

This would be useful for testing the performance of anti-aging products (by seeing if they can actually help slow the aging process of the skin), as well as for tracking progress in dermatology.