Beauty That’s More Than Skin Deep with Antioxidant Supplementation

Have you ever wondered if anti-wrinkle creams really can turn back the clock? There are lots of products that make your skin look better when you first put them on, but the real test is how your skin looks when the products are washed off. For the lasting beauty of healthy skin, you could opt for plastic surgery, but your first choice should the natural beauty that grows from the inside out when you get adequate antioxidants, especially vitamin E.

It’s easy to speed up the wrinkling of your skin. All you have to do is to smoke cigarettes or live with people who do, take 4 or more alcoholic drinks every day, and get lots of sun, although wrinkles are mostly due to exposure to the sun. The ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunlight penetrates the skin and makes free radicals.

The free radicals that sunlight makes in the skin are mostly free radicals of oxygen. The ray of sunlight forces the molecule of O2 to spin until it produces two “O’s.” These singlets oxygen cause proteins to link together. The linked proteins make skin “leathery” and the prevent the production of collagen skin needs to be smooth and supple. The outward symptoms of this process are wrinkles, age spots, and even cancer.

Natural nutrients reverse this process. Which natural nutrients? Beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamin C, and vitamin E are useful alongside NAC (N-acetylcysteine). Let’s look at these nutrients one by one.

Beta-carotene and lycopene are carotenoids, a group of pigments found in colorful foods such as tomatoes, carrots, and pumpkin. In the skin, they blend to form a “tanned” color, and they also soak up the free radicals released by UV rays. Beta-carotene is more important for skin color, but lycopene is more useful in fighting the sun’s skin-damaging effects. And if you take vitamin E in supplements or skin creams, vitamin E will ensure that they work longer and more effectively.

Beta-carotene, lycopene, and the other carotenoids, all forms of vitamin A, are especially helpful in preventing damage from sunburn. In persons over 80 years of age, skin creams are especially effective way to deliver these analogs of vitamin A to sun-damaged skin.

If you use sun block, you’re protected from the part of the sun’s spectrum known as UVB. But if you live in the United States, it’s almost impossible to get sunscreens that protect from the even broader part of the solar spectrum, UVA. For protection from UVA, take vitamins C and E together. You can take up to 1,000 IU of vitamin E with up to 2,000 vitamin C every day for added protection during a summer vacation or any other time you’ll be exposed to extra sun. And the combination of C and E is especially helpful in rejuvenating skin damaged by the chemicals in tobacco smoke.

If you’re over 60 and on a budget, the one antioxidant you need for your skin is vitamin E. Taking about 1,200 IU a day for a month protects mature skin against sunburn and stops (although it won’t reverse) the wrinkling process. Is a “one-a-day” enough? The answer is no, unless the multivitamin preparation also contains zinc. As little as 15 mg of zinc a day is enough, but the antioxidant benefits of vitamins C and E and the carotenoids are greatest with an adequate supply of zinc.It also helps to make sure your supplement offers complete vitamin B and essential fatty acids.

There is something else you can do to protect your skin, and it’s very simple. Drink more water. If you use moisturizing creams, making sure you drink enough water increases the ability of skin cells to respond to alpha-lipoic acid and vitamin C and increases the benefits of vitamin E in the skin. Avoiding sun, avoiding excessive use of alcohol, staying away from cigarettes and making sure you get your antioxidants in and on your skin will help turn leathery and wrinkled skin back to the vibrant skin of youth.

Go here to find an all natural skin care product that will nourish your skin and feed it what it needs.