How to eat for Healthy Skin

You've probably heard the phrase "you are what you eat." This often-used phrase originated by French author Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who wrote: "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."  

As a 65-year-old woman determined to do everything possible to age well and maintain healthy glowing skin, I embrace Brillat-Savarin's phrase. I know that there is an undeniable connection between food and the health of your skin and body.  

Nutrition is closely associated with skin health and is required for all skin biological processes from youth to aging or disease. Nutrition levels and eating habits can repair damaged skin and can also cause damage to the skin. 

Here are some highlights from what the experts say regarding a healthier skin diet.

1. Anti-Inflammatory Foods – Inflammation can age you in a multitude of ways. It accelerates aging, so much so that a new word, "inflammaging," was coined by scientists and doctors to describe this close connection. Inflammation and aging are so associated that they can be spoken of as a single word. Inflammation can also exhaust the skin's defense system, degrade collagen and elastin, and impairs the skin's barrier. One of the ways to combat it is to focus on eating anti-inflammatory food. As explained  by Harvard Health, an anti-inflammatory diet should include foods like green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, kale - and my mother will love this, collards. They also include nuts like almonds and walnuts and fruits like strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and oranges.
2. Choose foods rich in Antioxidants as they are essential for slowing and preventing free-radical damage and maintaining healthy cells. Colorful foods of bright red, yellow, and orange hues like squash, carrots, grapefruit, oranges, apricots are high in antioxidants.
3. Omega 3 fatty acids help your skin and hair glow. They are found in oily fish, walnuts, and flaxseed oil and help replenish the skin's natural barrier. Cold-water fish, such as wild salmon (one of my favorites as it is so easy to prepare), sardines, and herring, also contain omega-3 fatty acids. The omega-3 in fish reduces inflammation, which can cause redness and acne. They can even make your skin less sensitive to the sun's harmful UV rays. 
4. Drinking water helps flush your body to get rid of toxins that could build up and cause skin sensitivity. According to the Cleveland Clinic, you should drink the equivalent of eight glasses of water daily (juices, milk, fruit, and vegetables supply much of this amount) to cleanse away toxins and maximize the efficiency of body functions, including skin hydration. 
5. According to data from the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, higher intakes of Vitamin C are associated with better skin aging. The survey evaluated the association between nutrient intakes and skin-aging appearance.  Higher vitamin C intakes were associated with a lower likelihood of a wrinkled appearance and dryness https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17921406/ .Vitamin C is also necessary to create collagen. This structural protein keeps your skin firm. While I try to include foods rich in Vitamin C in my diet, I also take a daily Vitamin C supplement.
6. Curcumin, the natural compound and the main ingredient in turmeric, does much more than make our food taste good.  It's been used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine for around 4,000 years for its health benefits. Modern research has shown that this remarkable spice may have various benefits in the skin, from protecting us from premature anti-aging to skin-clearing to supporting skin healing and cell renewal. Research shows that turmeric inhibits a key enzyme (elastase) that reduces the ability of elastin to form. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25333322/ Elastin, along with collagen, is a protein needed for making the skin smooth and pliable and also helps it to retain its original position when pinched. Turmeric, in vitro, may inhibit elastase by up to 65 percent! I enjoy a ginger-turmeric tea with a serving of collagen hydrolysate daily to give my skin an extra boost. 
7. Pomegranate -According to recent studies, pomegranate can be the fruit that effectively helps fight aging compounds in the body. A study published in the journal Nature Medicine, led by researchers from Federale de Lausanne (a research institute in Switzerland), claims precisely that. During the research, scientists discovered that a molecule found in pomegranates, which, when eaten, gets transformed by microbes present in the gut, could enable muscle cells to protect themselves against one of the significant causes of aging.

Pomegranate's ability to stimulate collagen production and halt its breakdown can trigger the repair of harm already caused by the sun's UVA and UVB rays, says Joshua Zeichner, MD, of the department of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. I enjoy the skin-enhancing benefits of pomegranate with a mock cocktail (photo right) that my husband makes with pomegranate seeds, diet tonic and zero alcohol gin that I order from Drink Monday https://drinkmonday.co/. 

If you are like me and are eager to maintain beautiful, healthy skin as you age, I encourage you to nurture your skin with these powerful healing foods as you restore your skin with clean, organic, natural skincare products like Restoracell.

At Restoracell, we are lucky to have several nutritionists, doctors, and aging specialists as customers using our skincare products.  I asked Nutritionist and Health Coach Mary Sabat, RDN, LD of BodyDesignsbyMary (pictured left) how she approaches nutrition with her clients.

“Treating your skin from the outside is vital as we are bombarded every day with chemicals and pollutants that harm the fragile outer layers of our skin. But, we also need to work from the inside out by feeding our body what it needs to promote glowing, healthy skin. I tell my clients to make sure they have a diet full of plant-based foods for the phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals we need for the building blocks of healthy skin.

An easy guideline is to make sure your plate is 1/2 organic vegetables, 1/4 lean organic protein, and 1/4 low glycemic carbohydrates with a sliver of healthy fat. If we keep this simple formula in mind, being sure to choose natural, organic food, then our bodies will have what they need to nourish the skin from the inside out. In addition, avoiding sugar, processed food, and excessive alcohol intake will keep your body alkaline which is essential for not only healthy skin but optimal health.”

Do you wish to maintain beautiful, healthy skin as you age? If so, I encourage you to nurture your skin from the inside with powerful healing foods while restoring your skin from the outside with clean, organic, natural skincare products like Restoracell.