Lifestyle Choices

Life, the biological chain that holds our parts together, is only as strong as its weakest vital link..

You are as young or as old as your smallest vital links—the cells. The aging begins when your normal process of cell regeneration and rebuilding slows down. This slowdown is caused mainly by the accumulation of waste products in the tissues, which interferes with the nourishment of the cells. Each living cell is a complete living entity with its own metabolism. It needs a constant supply of oxygen and sufficient nourishment. (more…)

With intrinsic biological aging, the skin’s outer layer is thinned (over time by about 20 percent). The surface of the skin remains smooth. The border between the epidermis and the dermis becomes flattened, making the skin less resistant to friction (you get more blisters in snug shoes!). In contrast, extrinsic photoaging causes a thickening of the outer skin layer, with up to 50 percent more cells being accumulated onto the skin’s surface, making it feel rough and dry. Think of the grainy, thickened skin on the backs of the hands of a gardener, for example. With photoaging, accumulation of pigment in the basal cells is more markedly irregular than in intrinsic aging, causing the so-called “liver spots” or “age spots” (medically called solar lentigos), the unattractive dark spots especially prevalent on the hands, arms, face and chest. (more…)

Six major causes of our facial wrinkles:

1 Natural or “intrinsic” aging

Natural, biologic aging is responsible for the inevitable thinning of our skin accompanied by the loss of structural collagen and elastic tissue. The good news is that this biologic aging is the least important of the causes of wrinkles on your face. (more…)

Long-term effects of UV

These can be divided into photoaging, potentially malignant and frankly malignant tumors. The changes result from a cumulative dose of UVB over many years. At present the worst affected are fair-skinned Britons who have been brought up in tropical or subtropical climates, e.g. Northern Australia or the southern states of the USA. Other groups include men who spent years in the desert in World War Two. The victims of the future are today’s young men and women who roast themselves on sunny beaches every summer and who then try to maintain the tan by using sunbeds through the winter months. (more…)

This is a topic close to everyone’s heart. Many Western people are on the one hand increasingly conscious of their appearance and on the other hand doing irreversible damage to their skin by excessive sunbathing. Even sun- protected skin will age. Sunlight creates its own effect called photoaging, and the two processes together eventually lead to the typical changes of wrinkling, color variation and prominent blood vessels seen in old people who have spent much of their lives outdoors. We are now seeing this in younger individuals. Ultraviolet light and the changes it can effect will be discussed in detail, and then some of the theory behind skin aging and how to avoid it. (more…)

The Vitamins

Vitamin A applied to the surface of the skin either from a capsule on its own or mixed into cream and oil preparations has been used successfully in the treatment of dry and aging skin and acne. It appears to work particularly well in combination with vitamin D, which itself has a healing effect on the skin. (This is why vitamin D is often used in diaper-rash remedies and in burn ointments.)

Vitamin E, about which there has been such controversy, and vitamin C are certainly useful in the treatment of skin healing from a cut or burn. There is no conclusive evidence that, applied topically, it will do much for normal skin, although many women who use vitamin E regularly claim good results from it. (more…)

Nothing betrays your age like the state of your skin. When you are young, it is thick, glowing, soft, and elastic. As the years go by, a number of changes take place. The thickness of the skin diminishes by half. It loses its firmness. First, expression lines and minor discolorations form, then these tiny imperfections gradually become wrinkles and blotched skin, which is no longer able to retain water as it once could–skin that has lost its elasticity and turned crepey and old-looking. How fast all this happens depends not only on your genetic inheritance but also on the internal state of your body, your stress levels, and the care and protection you provide for your skin from the outside.

The aging process in your skin is really no different from anywhere else in the body, except that it can be faster. This is because, first, the skin’s cells tend to divide more often than most other kinds of cells, so genetic mutations are passed on more rapidly, and second, because your skin has to put up with so many external insults from what it is exposed to environmentally. (more…)

BEGIN BY STAYING OUT OF THE SUN

To preserve your skin from premature aging, in addition to the constant use of a sunscreen on your face as part of your everyday skin care, you should understand the art of sunbathing—that is if you want to tan at all. Ideally, of course, you would be far better off pale.

As we’ve already said, the sun is your skin’s worst “ager.” It has been proved that exposure to ultraviolet light brings about permanent fundamental alterations in the genetic material of skin cells and encourages the process of cross-linking. These changes are cumulative and irreversible. Even when sun-exposed skin from an arm is grafted onto a protected area such as the abdomen and left there for years, it still remains older- looking and darker than the skin surrounding it. (more…)

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. (more…)

A. Supplements — Who needs them?

You have now read about some of the benefits and characteristics of the nutrients considered essential to maintaining optimum health. So the question arises: do you need to supplement? Do you need to take vitamin and mineral pills, or a separate antioxidant supplement? There are some who say you get all you need from a healthy diet, and supplements are just expensive urine. Others see supplements as essential. So what should you do?

Ideally, a healthy and varied diet would provide your body with all the nutrients it needs. In some cases, however, food is grown in depleted soils or artificially under lights in hothouses. For example, selenium content in soils is varied and regional. New Zealand soils are quite low in selenium, as are parts of Australia, South Africa and North America, but it is important as an antioxidant and in supporting Vitamin E in your body.

Different circumstances and lifestyles can all take a toll on your health. In times of high emotional or physical stress, your body may need some extra support. While supplementation is not a substitute for a quality diet, it can certainly offer those with nutritional concerns some peace of mind. (more…)

While we are more and more aware about what is in our food - whether it is low in fat or sugar, whether it is GM free or organic - often we don’t spare a second thought to what is in our skincare or personal care products. According to research, women expose themselves to over 200 chemicals a day through skin and health-care products and make-up. This is a scary thought when you start to investigate what those ingredients are. We put on creams and lotions thinking we are doing our best to keep the skin healthy and hopefully slow down the aging process, yet often we are completely unaware of the product’s ingredients or the effect they may have on our health.

Over the last few years more and more information and research into the effects cosmetics are having on our health has become available. There is quite a debate taking place as companies defend their ingredients and the reasons why they are included in their products. The information can be quite confusing. We believe the only way you can really get to the bottom of this is to start investigating yourself, taking responsibility for your own health. Learn what the different ingredients are and what they do. Make informed decisions about whether you use them or not, and don’t be fooled by clever advertising campaigns. (more…)