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A better understanding of the skin will provide us with a better understanding of stretch marks.

Our skin is made up of a skin network, which is a connection made up of elastin fibers and collagen. elastin is a protein, and we must clearly understand that it allows the skin to have stretching properties. The presence of a stretch mark implies the damage of the elastin.

Normal skin, during or after an "injury"(any type of damage to the skin), is replaced by a scar. In this case, the scars are built to quickly reconnect elastin and collagen skin fibres. When a stretch mark is created the skin is torn because of an inability to withstand stretching. The appearance of a stretch mark on the skin, implies the degeneration of the skin network and its components in between the outermost and second layer of your skin. A scar is a mark that may appear to be on your skin's surface but is really underneath it. This type of scar is also referred to in some cases as a linear atrophic lesion.

it doesn't just end here, we also have to look into the elastin fibers and the collagen network. Connective tissue is made up of elastin fibers, among other things. It is estimated that these fibers can elongate up to 1.5 times their length, and constrain to their original length. But when the "stretching of the skin", snaps back, it may leave what we call a stretch mark.

How Stretch Marks are Formed

In reality a stretch mark is really damaged tissue, once tissue is damaged fibrocytes begin to undergo a process of mitosis.

Once this mitosis comes into action, it may end up with persistent stretch marks. stretched skin is not the sole reason one can have stretch marks. "Stretch marks" may come to be for many different factors.

* Firstly, there is a mechanical factor that plays a role in the skins fragility properties. This has to do with weight gain, pregnancy or growth.

* Secondly, there is an endocrine factor that is mostly due to the malfunction of the pituitary-hypothalamic complex. This, consequentially, leads to a disregulated cortisol behaviour, which gives us a weaken collagen network.

* Factors that are induced clinically are related to the use of corticoids treatments.

* The factor that is metabolic has to do mostly with a sugar metabolism disorder or glycation, this interrupts the biosynthesis process leading to problems with proteins such as collagen. This easily leads to a reduction in the skin's elasticity, which in the end reduces the skin elasticity.

So hormones and hormonal production can cause stretch marks as much as weight gain or growth. Stretch marks radicate from many sources, but the consequence is undeniable; an uncolored, stretched line that ends up being as stubborn as any other scar and impossible to remove no matter what stretch marks removal you use.