Your skin can be considered a mirror of your overall health. Nutrition is a foundational part of well-being, and when there are deficits or imbalances in your diet, it can often reflect in your skin. Your diet helps maintain skin integrity, ward off the inflammation that can lead to skin conditions, and reduce skin aging. Incorporating foods rich in macro and micronutrients is essential to your skin's overall look and function. If you want to maintain vibrant and healthy skin, working on these areas of your skin care can greatly benefit you.
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Understanding Skin Health
Your skin health provides insight into inner wellness. Skin is the largest organ, covering about one-seventh of our body weight, encasing you from head to toe. Three layers make up the skin: the epidermis (outer layer), the dermis (inner layer), and the hypodermis/subcutaneous (deep layer).
Together with a combination of various cell types and components, the skin performs a plethora of duties. It protects against outside pathogens and pollutants and contains layers of blood vessels and sweat glands to keep you insulated while playing a role in regulating body temperature. Other significant roles include absorbing nutrients, storing water and fat, and containing nerve endings that allow you to feel sensations.
When your internal health is imbalanced, the skin typically reflects that. Due to this, the skin can be a great indicator of overall health. In the absence of balance, the skin may appear dry and itchy, suggesting dehydration, allergies, or dermatitis. Various tints and slight changes to skin color hue, such as yellowing, can indicate liver conditions. Unusual and dark moles can be a sign of skin cancer. Rashes, acne, eczema, and hyperpigmentation can indicate dysbiosis, nutrient deficiencies, hormone imbalances, or autoimmune processes.
Since skin appearance has much to do with inner health, it’s essential to implement both internal and external fundamentals of skin health. In naturopathic medicine, correcting imbalances and restoring optimal environments occurs by “creating the conditions for health.” This involves addressing the Determinants of Health: nutrition, hydration, sleep, environment, community support, air quality and breath, and movement.
The literature states that 80% of extrinsic skin aging comes from lifestyle choices like diet, sleep position, smoking, ultraviolet exposure, pollution, and daily skincare habits. Intrinsic aging, which results from genetics, stress, and overall internal health, accounts for the remaining 20%. Based on this, you can see why addressing overall wellness can assist in healthy skin. There is a broad market for topical skin care, with good reason, as this is vital in maintaining the integrity, quality, and appearance of your skiing. How you take care of your skin can reduce skin thickening, pigmentation, dryness, wrinkles, laxity, and dullness.
Implementing a skincare regimen starts with assessing your complexion. If you are dealing with acne, sensitivity reactions, fine lines, wrinkles, sun damage, or discoloration, this can tell both the topical and internal needs of your skin. The primary recommendation for an effective at-home skincare routine includes protection, prevention, cleansing, and moisturizing.
Skin Care Routine
Incorporating this regimen in the morning and at night is ideal. For example, the basics of a skincare routine should look like this:
Morning: cleanser, moisture, sunscreen
Evening: cleanser, makeup remover (if applicable), and night cream.
Additional elements such as toners, exfoliants, and serums may be necessary for achieving skincare goals or correcting skin issues. Consulting with a dermatologist or skin-care expert is the best way to find specific products that align with your complexion and skin type.
Nutrients Essential for Skin Health
Specific nutrients can be used internally or as part of a facial product that nourishes and rejuvenates the skin. Minerals and vitamins containing carotenoids, tocopherols, and flavonoids are essential nutrients for skin health. The top minerals are zinc, copper, and selenium.
Zinc has an antioxidant protective role against UV irradiation and a protective mechanism against bacterial invaders. Copper has a similar antioxidant role against ultraviolet light and catalyzes elasticity by assisting collagen maturation. Another exciting role of copper is that it helps with melanin production, which is necessary for hair and skin pigmentation. Copper deficiency is a mineral to consider when white or silver hair conditions appear early in life.
Essential vitamins for skin health include vitamins A, C, D, and E. Most people have heard of retinol, a vitamin A derivative. This is a widely utilized nutrient in skincare products since vitamin A aids in skin cell turnover, helps produce collagen, increases skin smoothness, and reduces hyperpigmentation and wrinkles. This vitamin can also enter the capillaries of the dermis to support immune functions, protecting it against skin infections and oxidative stress.
Vitamin C and vitamin E have similar roles in skin health. They are both potent antioxidants that assist in preventing ultraviolet skin damage. These two vitamins work hand in hand in collagen maintenance, such as dampening collagen degradation as you age.
While fatty acids may not be the first nutrient you think of regarding skin health, essential fatty acids are pivotal in decreasing inflammation. Aiming to have a lower ratio of omega-6s to omegas-3s, in the 4:1 (or less), can help optimize your skin health. A key attribute of fatty acids is that they help maintain your skin's barrier for protection against oxidative stress. Incorporating fish oils into your diet is one way to support this nutrient. Individuals often opt to use oil-based cleansers since that medium is both antimicrobial and nutritive.
The Role of Hydration
The human body comprises roughly 55-65% water. Water assists in cellular processes, brain health, and many more physiological functions. Water is also necessary for skin health. The make of your skin is about 30% water, which aids in your skin's radiant look, elasticity, and resiliency.
While many think lack of water contributes to dry skin, other dominating factors lead to this. This includes air quality, hot water exposure, medications, medical conditions, and stripping the skin of its natural oils through soap-based cleansers. Maintaining adequate hydration supports the skin's thickness and turgor, which is its elasticity capacity.
Aiming for half your body weight in ounces of water is a general rule of thumb for hydration intake. Making it a routine can help you make conscious choices about how much you consume. Starting your day with a glass of water and then scheduling it every hour can quickly get you to your goal. Staying hydrated also includes having a balance of electrolytes. Electrolytes can be obtained from your food, sea salt, or supplementation.
Functional Medicine Testing to Assess Nutritional Status
Investigating factors that impact skin health include a nutritional assessment of nutrients that support vibrant skin. Vitamins, minerals, and antioxidant status can be measured through a comprehensive panel such as Spectracell’s Micronutrient Test. In addition, running an Omega-3 and -6 Fatty Acid test by Access Medical Laboratories will evaluate omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and determine if you fall into a healthy balance.
Impact of Dietary Choices on Skin
What you consume can support or adversely impact your skin health. Highly processed and sugar-laden food can affect the skin by promoting advanced glycation end product (AGEs) formation. When sugar binds to collagen and elastin protein fibers that assist in youthful and tight skin, the AGEs form and degrade skin structure. This ultimately leads to less elasticity, increased wrinkles, skin pigment changes, and impaired skin cell turnover.
Excess sugar is also a detrimental dietary component when it comes to conditions like acne and psoriasis. In addition to eczema, these conditions can be caused by various food allergies or nutrient sensitivities like dairy and gluten. A systemic review has shown that dairy intake in those 7 to 30 years old revealed higher odds of developing acne vulgaris than non-dairy consumers. While many people may be sensitive to dairy, responses like this have more to do with gut health than the actual culprit food.
Gut health’s impact on the skin is heavily predicated on the health of your microbiome. Your microbiome is the terrain of your gut, consisting of trillions of microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, and fungal species. Dysbiosis, an imbalance in healthy microbes and pathogenic organisms, can lead to a leaky gut.
When a leaky gut occurs, the tight junction of your intestinal tract becomes more lax. This allows food particles and foreign molecules not usually surveyed by the immune system to be seen and marked as harmful. This response leads to an inflammatory cascade that can impact overall health, including your skin. Supporting your gut microbiome is advantageous to promote skin health and even your skin's microbiome.
Anti-Inflammatory Diets and Skin Health
Inflammation in the skin can manifest in various presentations and diagnoses. Inflammation is a natural mechanism the body produces when it undergoes injury or infection or tries to protect itself from an environmental detriment. Typical signs of skin inflammation include redness, itching, bumps, hives, swelling, or tenderness. Staying in a state of chronic inflammation can contribute to skin conditions, including premature aging, psoriasis, acne, eczema, and dermatitis.
One avenue to managing skin inflammation is through diet. An anti-inflammatory diet for skin health should include a variety of macro and micronutrients. Eating an optimal amount of protein, fats, and balanced complex carbohydrates, along with antioxidant-rich foods and produce, can increase your likelihood of obtaining all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients your skin needs to combat inflammatory skin reactions. Literature shows that high-glycemic foods, chocolate, dairy, and your particular food sensitivities can increase inflammation that impacts skin health.
One diet that works well for many people is the Mediterranean Diet, which follows a guideline of nutrient-dense whole foods, including a plethora of fruits, vegetables, minimally processed grains, an abundance of healthy fats, fish, lean protein, and moderate legumes and beans. One study found that a Mediterranean diet helped reduce the incidence of rosacea, which can manifest due to inflammation. Working with a practitioner who can look at this from an individualized perspective can assist you with an appropriate nutrition plan.
Addressing Skin Aging Through Nutrition
Turning back the hands of time, a tagline often used in the skincare industry is usually applied to anti-aging appearance. Vibrant and radiant skin, a desirable attribute, can be achieved through nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory, and functional food nutrition. Antioxidants for youthful skin include glutathione, vitamin E, coenzyme Q10, selenium, and vitamin C. Examples of foods that these can be found in are strawberries, blueberries, spinach, artichokes, meat, salmon, almonds, and dark chocolate.
In addition to antioxidants, collagen has an important role in maintaining skin elasticity, which reduces wrinkles and signs of aging. As you get older, collagen starts to decline naturally. This process begins in your 20s, and by age 40, collagen decreases by 1% every year. There are five primary types of collagen, with Types I, III, and V being abundantly present in the skin.
Foods that increase collagen are protein-rich. Eating foods rich in amino acids proline (examples: mushrooms, fish, meat) and glycine (examples: red meats and chicken) provides building blocks for collagen production, while animal products such as beef, eggs, and even fish can provide exogenous collagen. Bone broth is also a nutrient-dense food that is an excellent source of collagen. Incorporating these foods into your diet can be preventative against the signs of aging skin.
Developing A Skin-Healthy Diet Plan
Creating a skin-healthy diet should be practical, suitable for your needs, and sustainable. According to experts, eating a balanced nutrition profile is key. Obtaining the vitamins A, C, D, and E, along with the potent antioxidants found in foods like berries, helps protect against free radicals, which can damage skin cells and quality.
Practical daily diet tips for vibrant skin include eating a protein and fat-rich breakfast, a nutrient-dense antioxidant-rich lunch, and a lighter portioned dinner that is nutrient-dense. Working on an individualized skin care plan that emphasizes a dietary regimen could greatly benefit you. Considering the Mediterranean diet, avoiding inflammatory foods or your food sensitivities while supporting a healthy gut microbiome all play a role in a skin-healthy diet plan.
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Achieving Healthy Skin Through Nutrition
Nutrition and health are multifactorial. When it comes to optimal nutrition for skin health, it's important to consider food that will provide the nutrients necessary while also helping reduce inflammation, reduce your risk for chronic skin conditions, and aid in gracefully aging skin. An individualized nutrition plan is what many integrative medicine practitioners advocate for since this can be tailored to your unique needs. A great starting place is to evaluate whether there are any nutritional deficiencies, combined with your clinical presentation, and then collaborate with your healthcare provider on a skincare regimen.
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