How Diet Affects Your Skin

How Your Diet Affects Your Skin

We always hear how a poor diet can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease but you don’t hear enough about the link between nutrition and healthy skin. Did you know that only around 10% of looking physically aged comes from the natural processes of aging? The other 90% of looking physically aged stems from external factors which are within your control. And in actuality, aging gracefully starts with prevention and protection – the younger you discover this, the healthier your skin will look!

Your Nutrition is an Ingredient to Healthy Looking Skin

Though good nutrition alone won’t guarantee smooth, healthy looking skin, its importance shouldn’t be underestimated either. Eating foods that “feed” the body and mind play a strong role in how our bodies age. What you put into your body shows on the outside and healthy aging begins from the inside out. Whatever you continuously choose to eat or drink will eventually have an impact on your overall health and look, so it’s important to keep that in mind as you’re making these tough little life choices.

Staying hydrated with plenty of water cannot be forgotten, as it flushes out toxins and balances the pH value in the body. The recommended 64-96 oz per day is meant to keep the skin hydrated and moisturized, thus improving elasticity and reducing sagging skin, wrinkles, and fine lines. Dehydration causes your body to pull water from your skin to maintain the concentration in your blood. Your skin will feel dryer and lose elasticity, which, again, causes wrinkles. Often in aesthetics, the contributions (both the good and bad ones!) of nutrition are overlooked. This is why Dr. Wise and I wholeheartedly believe in the amazing value of rounding out your diet with the right nutritional supplements.

Supplements, like skincare, are not regulated as stringently as prescriptions and over-the-counter medications so Dr. Wise and I chose, and still choose, our supplement supplier because of its dedication to quality, efficacy, and ethics. It sources from over forty different countries, heavily researches the raw materials, and utilizes third-party testing facilities to ensure each supplement is consistent and of the highest quality.

Supplements We Recommend

We recommend Orthomolecular’s line of medical-grade supplements. They are available to purchase at our office. If you’re in our membership, you will receive a discount on your supplements. Here are a few of our favorite supplements.

Collagen (Micro-Collagen) is by far the most popular. It provides your body with the building blocks it needs for collagen. This can enhance collagen stimulating treatments.

MitoCORE® (Power Multi) supplies key mitochondrial micronutrients and a smart combination of alpha lipoic acid, N-acetyl cysteine, and acetyl L-carnitine to boost cellular energy production.

Orthomega® 820 (True Omega Fish Oil) supports healthy skin, joints and connective tissues among many other benefits.

Cosmedix (The Essentials for Hair, Skin, & Nails) provides vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients to help maintain healthy hair and nails.

L-Glutathione (Skin Brite) is heavily concentrated in tissues such as the liver, spleen and heart. It plays a crucial role in immune function, detoxification capacity and protection against oxidative stress.

How Certain Foods Can Positively Affect Your Skin

Nutrients like antioxidants and vitamins found in fruits and vegetables can keep your skin cells healthy, improve skin tone, and help with complexion. Studies have found that foods high in antioxidants, such as tomato paste, protect the skin from sun damage while other plant-based compounds found in fruits and veggies, dark chocolates, certain herbs and spices, and teas may all offer similar defenses. Salmon and seafood, avocados and nuts are also great because they are rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which promote skin health.

How Certain Foods Can Negatively Affect Your Skin

Some foods and drinks can cause inflammation in the body, free radical damage to skin cells by lowering antioxidant levels, and promote water retention thus contributing to a “puffy” look. The most well known of these are probably sugar and salt. Too much sugar causes inflammation in your skin and affects your collagen, causing premature skin aging. Processed meats such as sausages, ham, bacon and cured meats have large amounts of sodium so try to limit your intake of these foods. Other ultra processed foods to limit include frozen pizzas, sodas, cookies, cakes, candy, and other sweets and desserts. Remember too that alcohol is a drying agent, so wrinkles and pores become more noticeable while cheeks and lips lose hydration and volume. Avoiding these items will help your skin to feel good and also help reduce your risk of chronic disease.

Skincare Treatments Can Help Stay on Track

As we said, sometimes a balanced diet just isn’t enough to make the impact you want to see. So in addition to healthy life choices, we recommend looking into some of Ooh La La’s treatment options to get, or keep you, on the right path.

To reverse damage from the sun and other external factors, we offer Forever Young BBL (BroadBand Light) which uses intense pulsed light to address a variety of skin concerns as well as HALO Laser Skin Resurfacing, Microneedling with PRP or Secret RF.

To restore the glow that dehydration, time and stress have depleted from your skin, we offer DiamondGlow, a next-level skin rejuvenating technology that simultaneously exfoliates, extracts, and treats your skin.

And while collagen supplements are a great way to improve your skin, we have some amazing collagen stimulating treatment options that will work even harder to tighten your skin and help you look years younger. Pearl Laser, Ultherapy, and Sculptra Injections are a few of our favorites.