Hi Bob, thanks for the comment. I would definitely not recommend anyone to get poked in the face repeatedly in the name of exaggerated beauty standards. But that’s because I believe that the integrity of our bodies (and therefore its health) is more important than the outer appearance of our skins. I do not have anything against reconstructive or filling surgery for the people who need it for for functional or aesthetic reasons, but I would keep unnecessary invasions into the body to the minimum.

I read the article you linked to and I looked at the data and it doesn’t really show any difference to me. When you look at some numbers in a table, you tend to believe the authors when they say “significant decrease”, but when you put the data into graph form, you get your answer. I see a p < 0.05 thrown in there, but with such high data variability and the overlap of all data sets, it’s difficult to see any decrease, let alone a significant decrease (even when you zoom in just around the interesting values). Maybe I’m wrong and if I had the raw data I’d get the p < 0.05 as well, but I doubt it.

I wouldn’t even look at the questionnaire data because perception of personal appearance is highly subjective and variable from one day to the next. You will notice that even those on placebo reported the same “values” for each parameter. It would have been nice to have the questionnaire, to see what the subjects were looking for on their faces.

As a conclusion, I guess if you had enough rest (sleep is awesome), higher amounts of complete protein in your diet and enough water to keep you properly hydrated, you’d actually notice improvements in the area and depth of your wrinkles. Now I really should finish that article that I was writing about the beauty of wrinkles…