You know them as soon as you see them: dark, angry, red and rippled streaks of skin, an unfortunate reminder that sometimes the body changes at a rate too fast for the skin to keep up. Stretch marks are the bane of women everywhere and a near unavoidable fact of life. Like the villain of a late night monster flick, they are frightening, strike without prejudice and do not go away without a prolonged, intense fight. But what causes the problem to begin with?
Skin is elastic, to a certain extent. Sure, it is not exactly rubber, but if you tug at it, it will give a little before snapping back to its normal shape. However, despite this flexibility, skin has its limits. When people get larger fast, either through weight gain or muscle expansion, they run the risk of stretching their skin too much. Instead of expanding and then receding, it forms small, visible and permanent tears. These marks are usually long, reddish (at least initially) and feel like thin dips in the skin. In the medical world, these marks are often called striae.
Another important factor in the appearance of stretch marks is hormones. Teenagers get a lot of grief for their hormones (and in fact, their overacting hormones place them most at risk for these marks, should they gain weight), but the fact is everyone has plenty of them. They’re little chemicals that travel around telling your body what to do and how to feel. In some instances, your body can send out wayward hormones, which tell the cells in your skin to stop making collagen (something that keeps your skin firm, smooth and acts as a cushion). Without that collagen, your skin becomes thin, weak and subject to damage (from wrinkles as well as stretch marks).
There are several contributing factors. One of them is age. As we age, our body’s defenses become weaker and our skin becomes thinner and more prone to damage. Another factor is medication. Some medications play with the body’s hormonal levels, which can reduce collagen production. Yet another factor is diet and exercise; when people embark on an unhealthy lifestyle, they may gain weight rapidly and put too much pressure on the body; in these instances, the skin suffers.
They say that knowledge is power and one of the most important reasons for understanding the causes of stretch marks is so that you can fight them. Stay fit, eat right and pay attention to the side effects of any medications you take. Remember that while some situations may seem inescapable (for example, a perfectly healthy woman who gets pregnant can suffer from stretch marks even if she does not gain a large amount of weight and eats only the right portion size), there is always something you can do. There are numerous stretch mark removal products on the market which counter the hormone changes by refilling collagen levels via topical creams. Remember, once they appear they’re near impossible to get rid of, so start the prevention tactics now.