Lifestyle Choices

While all of the nutrients found in the Lifestyle Diet are important for skin, some are particularly vital to its look and health. Vitamin A, for instance. If you do not have enough of it in your diet or if you have some difficulty in assimilating and using the vitamin (many women do), this can bring about dry, scaly, and crinkled skin. For, among its many functions, vitamin A helps regulate the size and functions of the sebaceous glands. A shortage can result in enlarged pores, rough skin, and acne.

Without adequate vitamin C, the collagen fibers in the dermis suffer damage. Vitamin C and the biofiavonoids that are found in natural foods (such as the whitish inner skin of grapefruit) not only keep skin young by helping to protect the collagen fibers and keep them intact, they also ensure the health of the tiny capillaries that supply nutrients to the skin’s cells, protecting skin from fragile or broken veins (bruising) and early wrinkling. When capillaries are not strong and working properly, then the skin’s cells don’t receive all the oxygen and nutrients they need via the bloodstream, and their functioning suffers. Neither are wastes efficiently eliminated. This can lead to st_asis in the tissues, and cellulite, as well as contributing to early aging of the skin.

The B-complex vitamins, which help keep nerves healthy and relaxed, also aid circulation in the skin. A lack of one or more of the B group can result in redness, tenderness, or ulcerations around the corners of the mouth. The B group is also useful in controlling excessive oiliness and in avoiding discolorations that often appear on the face and hands in middle age. Some of these blotches will even gradually fade in time when a tablespoon of brewer’s yeast, containing the B vitamins, is taken in a glass of juice at mealtimes.

One of the B group, vitamin B2, or riboflavin, is particularly important in the transport of oxygen to the cells of the skin. Unless cellular oxygen is sufficient, nutrients can’t be burnt efficiently for fuel, nor will cellular wastes be completely removed. An insufficiency of riboflavin also causes tiny lines to be etched in the skin around the lips and contributes to the formation of scales and cracks known as cheilosis and stomatitis. When vitamins B₁ and B2, niacin, and B6 are added to the diet of women with these symptoms, the symptoms usually disappear.

A professor of dermatology at Japan’s Chiba University School of Medicine did some interesting research into skin disorders and the level of certain B-complex vitamins in the skin. In comparing the levels of the B vitamins in people with dermatological problems, with those of normal, healthy skin, he discovered that 27 percent of those with various kinds of dermatosis were deficient in thiamine, 27 percent in riboflavin, and 52 percent in pyridoxine. He also linked a great variety of skin problems, such as eczema, baldness, keratosis, viral infections of the skin, erythema, and various pigmentation disorders, directly with B deficiencies.

Vitamin E, about which there has been such controversy, is vital to skin health and beauty too. Dry, rough, etched, or tired-looking skin often improves when vitamin E is taken in supplementary form. Like vitamin C, vitamin E plays an important role in holding back the skin’s aging process, because of its antioxidant properties. It simulates circulation and helps prevent free radicals from causing damage to the DNA— the cell’s genetic material. This DNA damage is one of the most important parts of the degenerative process of aging.

Lecithin, which is such an excellent source of choline, unsaturated fatty acids and anti-stress factors, is one of the most important supplements you can take to look after your skin. It complements all the other anti-stress nutrients and can be taken easily by sprinkling two tablespoons of granular lecithin on your cereals or in yogurt or salads. In some way that is not completely understood, it appears to give support to the skin in a number of ways and to keep it fresh, plump, and smooth-looking.

Minerals for Beauty

Vitamin C and zinc are both essential for the maintenance of resilient collagen and elastin. Human skin contains about 10 percent of the body’s zinc. Without enough zinc (and studies show that most women in industrialized countries appear to be deficient in zinc) stretch marks easily appear on the body, and the skin sags and wrinkles easily.

More seriously, zinc deficiency has been shown to cause keratogenesis (a severe skin lesion in rats and mice that resembles psoriasis in people) and also delayed wound healing.

Another mineral, sulfur, is often called the beauty mineral. Although all the body cells contain sulfur, those of the skin, hair, and joints have it in far greater amounts than anywhere else. The keratin of the epidermis is especially rich in sulfur; so are your fingernails and hair When sulfur in the diet is insufficient (as it is in many women as a result of misguided warnings against egg eating and the widespread cholesterol phobia), the hair and nails become weaker and the skin tends to scale. A few eggs a week can do a great deal to improve these conditions or prevent them from occurring.

Selenium, another antioxidant, like vitamins C and E helps preserve tissue elasticity because of its ability to delay oxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which cause tissue proteins to solidify, so it is also important as a factor in the prevention of premature aging of skin. Selenium is found in eggs, garlic, tuna fish, brewer’s yeast, and onions.

Silicon, found in avocados, apples, and honey, is needed to prevent flabbiness in the skin, as it is for producing strong nails and a fine sheen on the hair. And there are more: Iodine helps keep nails and hair strong. Calcium and magnesium are needed to make use of other nutrients in the body. One way or another, every mineral, like every vitamin, has a part to play in ensuring the health of skin and in preserving youth in it. They need to be supplied in good balance from a long-term diet for health and beauty, and if possible any imbalance or deficiency needs to be detected by hair analysis and then corrected by mineral and vitamin supplements where necessary before the beauty potential of your skin and hair will ever be fulfilled.

Skin Destroyers and Helpers

Everyone knows that stress can adversely affect skin, causing lumps and blemishes to appear when you least want them. Long-term stress also contributes greatly to the aging process. But what few women realize is that exercise has also a vital role to play in keeping your skin young as well. This is not only because it stimulates circulation, which improves cell nutrition and firms muscles, but also because when body-muscle mass shrinks as a result of inactivity, the amount of vital hormones, for instance, and the level of steroid hormones from the adrenal glands and the sex glands, decrease in direct proportion to the decrease in the body’s muscle mass. Many of these declining hormones play an important part in preserving water balance and youthful appearance of the skin. Vigorous exercise several times a week helps keep this from happening.

Finally, fine skin depends on enough sleep, staying away from such stimulants as coffee, alcohol, and tobacco—all of which are bad news for a complexion—and on making sure your liver is in good order. Since the liver is the organ that has to deal with the neutralizing of toxic elements in our air and food, unless it is functioning well they can back up in the system, resulting not only in early degeneration of skin but chronic illnesses.

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