The skin is the largest ‘organ’ of the body and is the most exposed to the external environment. It is an amazing organ which can repair itself after most physical injuries but depending on the extent of that injury and other factors will depend on how good a repair job is actually done.  One of these other factors is the age of the person. Scars do not occur as often in younger persons because the skin cells divide more quickly to fill out the wound area.

So how do scars actually form?  When damage occurs to the skin in some way (acne, chicken pox, surgery, physical injury, etc), both skin cells and fibroblasts (connective tissue cells) begin dividing to repair the damaged area. The framework fibres are formed by the fibroblasts and the skin cells fill in the gaps to fill up the wound area. Now the ideal or perfect repair job is when the skin cells and fibroblasts are working in unison with each other.

If there are not enough fibroblasts dividing with only skin cells filling the damaged area then there is a danger that the repaired wound may not be as strong as the surrounding skin tissue. This situation is very rare.

Then if skin cells do not replicate fast enough and fibroblasts divide too quickly, then it results in a dense network of fibres. These fibres are not easily penetrated by the skin cells and so the skin cells have a hard time replacing or filling in the fibroblasts. This results in a dense network of fibroblasts (tough fibres) or scar tissue. If fibroblasts continue to replicate even after the wound is filled in, then keloids are formed. These form large mounds of scar tissue that project above the surface of the skin. Some ethnic groups are more prone to forming keloids than others.

The key then is to have skin cells dividing quickly to keep up with the dividing fibroblasts which means little scar tissue will form and the skin will look close to normal when the healing has taken place. Children up to young adults don’t get too many scars from injuries compared to mature adults simply because their skin cells are able to replicate or divide more quickly.

There are, however, many other factors that affect scar formation and the ability to remove or reduce significantly scars. The most important of these is a balanced diet with vitamins and minerals.

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