Feeding your Skin from Inside

• The entire collection of cells in the body requires a tremendous number of nutrients and metabolites in order to thrive. Many of these nutrients need to be derived from food, these include minerals, vitamins and the essential amino acids. Yet other nuetrients are created within a healthy and well nourished body. There is no skin care product that can replace these processes.
• Putting on a nutrient enriched skin cream does not guarantee that the nutrients actually penetrate into the skin cells. It is entirely possible for the nutrients to just rest on the top of your skin until the next time you wash. The quantity of active ingredients that is actually absorbed into the skin cells is dependent on a number of factors: the condition of the skin, the amount of active ingredient in the product, how the product is manufactured and many other things. This doesn’t mean that all skin cream is of no value but should just serve as a word of warning that they can be unreliable. Nutrients that you gain through healthy eating are the most reliable as it is certain that they will get to your skin cells.
• Nutrition has an effect on the aging process as a whole. Slowing down the aging mechanism as a whole will also slow the aging process in the skin.
• Foods with high nutritional value benefit not only the skin but the other bodily systems and general health as well.

Why the skin cannot only be nourished from the inside only

• The aging process for the human skin happens because of a combination of reasons: innate biological functions combined with environmental factors such as sun, wind and pollution. Good nutrition can slow the ageing process but it doesn’t provide protection from environmental hazards. Proper use of sun block, limiting exposure to the sun and other steps discussed elsewhere in this site must also be taken.
• There is no safe way to ingest a heavily concentrated amount of active ingredients to enrich the skin cells. Topical treatments are the safest and most effective means of creating a fairly fast and effective set of results. Vitamin C is a good example of this. You can use a topical cream with a concentration of 10 per cent or more safely but ingesting that much orally is very dangerous as the vitamin C is excreted by the kidneys and high dosages can lead to a number of serious problems.
• Some effective ingredients are safe for topical use but not for taking orally.
• Other substances such as growth hormones and peptides are not easily broken down in the digestive system. They are neutralized during their time in the GI tract and therefore can only be used in topical form.
• Great care should be taken when choosing the nutrients that you plan to take orally. Some of them cannot be absorbed effectively via the GI tract. This can lead to digestive issues such as hypoacidity.

Summing Up

In order to keep you skin looking healthy you need to maintain a diet that is well balanced nutritionally. While healthy eating may not produce striking results, not eating a healthy diet will cause your skin to age much faster. A lact of nutrients like vitamin A, B-complex and some of the essential fatty acids can lead to dermatitis and other skin problems. Low level deficiencies are quite common and are often undiagnosed as they may not lead to serious issues but they can certainly have a negative effect on the skins ability to renew it or to heal quickly. Improved nutrition can often result in younger looking skin and possibly even a partial reversal of aging. Skin care products are a lot less likely to be effective if your skin is lacking in the essential nutrients. Finally, there are some nutrients that if ingested in doses that are higher than the minimal requirement (but still within a safe amount) may produce benefits to the skin that are greater than what regular basic balanced nutrition can deliver.