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. (more…)

Your body is designed to move, and a certain level of exercise is needed just to keep it working healthily. However, it’s all too easy to develop a couch-potato lifestyle, or simply to run out of time to exercise. This is bad news for your long-term health as well as your weight. Low activity levels exaggerate your appetite, slow your rate of metabolism and interfere with your body’s ability to keep blood glucose levels stable.

GET THE EXERCISE HABIT

Combining diet and exercise is the best way to lose weight: that way you lose fat, not lean muscle when you diet.

Muscle burns up more energy than fat, so the less muscle you have, the slower your metabolism.

Aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, dance, skiing, circuit training) increases your heart rate and is ideal for fatburning, whereas anaerobic exercise (using weights or resistance) builds lean muscle and improves body tone. (more…)

Well circumscribed bald patches on the scalp like miniature skating rinks, usually means alopecia areata, a curious disorder in which the hair follicles switch off production completely but strangely enough can recover at any time. Just what switches them off is debatable but it may be that the body is acting against itself rather than a disease that has been picked up from outside. It is certainly nothing to do with diet or ‘nerves’ and follows its own course despite, rather than because of, the attention directed to it by doctors. When there are only a few patches, recovery can be expected. If the disease becomes more severe a dermatologist may be able to stimulate the hair using steroid creams to rub on or might make the scalp inflamed by deliberately inducing allergy which sometimes helps. (more…)

1. Iron helps form haemoglobin, the oxygen carrying red pigment in your blood. It also aids protein metabolism and is essential for brain development and growth. It is found in meat, seafood, poultry, whole grains, beans, peas and dark-green leafy vegetables like spinach.

Ninety per cent of all iron used is recycled because it is so well conserved in the body. This means that you don’t have to keep replacing it all the time. This, of course, calls into question the widespread use of iron supplementation. Iron overload (hemochromatosis) is the most common inherited disease. When excess iron is present, the body’s immune system becomes severely compromised. Vitamin E helps protect against iron-generated free radical damage. So a high-quality antioxidant would be beneficial for balance if you have excess iron levels. (more…)