Every year Americans spend billions of dollars on various anti-aging products and procedures for keeping their skin looking beautiful, however, while our skin is on the outside of the body and visible to the world, how our skin appears is the end result of internal biochemistry. If our body is aging, it’s going to show up on the skin. This is why so many of us are dissatisfied with topical anti-aging creams, lotions and surgical procedures that we use to make our skin youthful.
For healthy pretty skin nutrition is key, especially fats and fatty vitamins. Essential fatty acids provide anti-inflammatory benefits and support skin hormones that turn on the production of connective tissue and moisture factors. Vitamin A keeps skin cells dividing at a healthy pace and supports collagen synthesis. Zinc boosts skin cell immunity and supports healthy skin genetics.
Plant or phytonutrients are also important, especially the red and orange pigments. These molecules, generally referred to as carotenoids, have a unique chemical structure that allows them to function as antioxidants, sun protectants, influencers of skin immunity and to control and stimulate healthy skin cell function and growth. While beta-carotene is the most famous of the carotenoids, in actuality there’s hundreds of them found in nature, in foods and in plants. Enjoying a wide variety of these molecules in the diet from carrots, pumpkin, squash, seaweeds and spinach, among many other foods, is a must for keeping skin looking young, no matter how old it is.
