What Estrogen Does to Your Skin (And What Actually Works)
5/19/20261 hr 7 min
In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Tony Youn, a board certified plastic surgeon nationally recognized as one of the top plastic surgeons in the United States, bestselling author of Younger for Life, and the most followed plastic surgeon on social media with more than five million YouTube subscribers and eight million TikTok followers. In part one of this two part conversation, they take on a question that sits at the intersection of hormones and skin health that most doctors have never connected for their patients: what estrogen is actually doing to the skin, and what women can do about it. Dr. Youn opens with a statistic that women lose 30% of the thickness of their collagen in the first five years after menopause, and then continue losing collagen at twice the rate of men for every year that follows. He explains exactly why this happens, how estrogen interacts with the fibroblasts that produce collagen and elastin, what declining estrogen does to hyaluronic acid and skin hydration, and why women are not imagining it when their skincare suddenly stops working. Guest links: Anthony Youn, MD Tony Youn, MD (Instagram) Doctor Youn (TikTok) Dr. Anthony Youn (Facebook) Doctor Youn (YouTube) The Doctor Youn Show (Apple Podcasts) Books “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver “The New Menopause" by Dr. Mary Claire Haver“Younger for Life: Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity, Nutrition and Self-Care for a Youthful Life,” by Anthony Youn "Playing God" by Anthony Youn To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMary Claire Haver· Host0:00
Because there was so much to cover with Dr. Tony Youn, we have broken this episode into two parts. This is part one, and we will publish part two later this week.
Tony Youn· Guest0:09
So in general, for a male, uh, starting in your mid-20s, you do lose about 1%- Okay ... of the thickness of collagen in your skin every year, uh, starting in the mid-20s.
Mary Claire Haver· Host0:20
Okay.
Tony Youn· Guest0:20
Women, it's different. Okay? Starting in mid-20s, same thing, about 1% a year. But once women go through menopause, there are studies that show that women lose 30% of the thickness of their collagen in the first five years after menopause.
Mary Claire Haver· Host0:33
Wait. Wait, Tony. Wait.
Tony Youn· Guest0:34
[laughs] 30% of the thickness of collagen in the first five years after menopause. Now, it also will increase by about... It, it increases the collagen loss to about 2% a year after that. So now you're doing 30% in the first five years, and then about 2% every year thereafter, versus men, where it's about 1% a year. And so that is the effects of estrogen on your skin. And that's why you see women who maybe are in their 70s or 80s, and some of them have literally tissue paper thin skin- Yeah, yeah, yeah ... to where you scratch them and the skin tears.
Mary Claire Haver· Host1:06
Yeah.
Tony Youn· Guest1:06
You don't see it quite as thin in men as they get older- Really? ... and that's that estrogen effect.
Mary Claire Haver· Host1:11
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