Topical products for aging skin: crow's feet are for the birds.(Better nutrition special report: anti-aging)

If you're 20 years old or older, chances are your skin care regimen includes products to prevent or treat the signs of aging. And although science hasn't figured out how to keep the biological clock from ticking, research is turning up powerful skin care ingredients that can actually prevent some signs of aging and turn back the clock at least a few years.

Antioxidants

Perhaps the most powerful of these ingredients are antioxidants: micronutrients that trap and destroy free radicals, which are harmful cellular by-products that many scientists believe are the main culprits in aging and disease. "Antioxidants can provide a very effective and powerful [beauty] program without surgery or anything drastic like that," says Terry Grossman, MD, co-author of Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (Rodale, 2004).

"In our youth, our cells turn over quickly and efficiently. As we get older, this doesn't happen--they can mutate so they're no longer healthy, strong, round cells," says Shan Albert, aesthetician, educator and product developer. Antioxidants are one of the best ways to prevent this, she says, because they "can help old cells be replaced with healthy cells, leaving you with a healthy, radiant complexion."

Myriad antioxidants exist, and each has its own unique benefits. "There are many different kinds of antioxidants that address different kinds of oxidant damage--it's not like one antioxidant fixes all free radical damage; that's why it's important to have more than one," Albert says. While some antioxidants protect your skin from damage, others can actually repair skin damage that appears in the form of wrinkles, thin skin and age spots.

When cruising the beauty aisles, knowing which products work--and which work best for you--can be tricky. But these antioxidants have proven to work in skin care.

Pycnogenol: An antioxidant derived from the bark of French maritime pine trees, pycnogenol helps stimulate the production of immune cells, which in turn helps protect against the aging process, according to Frank Schonlau, PhD, director of scientific communications for Horphag Research in Geneva. "Pycnogenol releases pro-inflammatory mediators that help immune cells protect the skin from photoaging [the detrimental effects on skin that result from long-term exposure to sunlight] and extend the skin's resistance to sunburn."