The Best Thing for Aging Skin Is Good Nutrition: How to Nourish Your Skin Inside and Out

Most of us have been led to believe that aging skin is just a matter of years going by. This isn’t true. The specific causes of skin aging have been uncovered by scientific research — and all the most important causes can be reversed. The best thing for aging skin is good nutrition.

Most of us can run down the problems of aging skin at a glance. It’s developing lines and wrinkles; it sags in places; there are often some “age spots,” or discoloration; and it is often think and delicate, easy to bruise or tear at even small scrapes. If your skin is like that, it probably takes a long time to heal from those little scrapes, too,

That is discouraging. It’s more discouraging if you have tried several expensive skin lotions and they haven’t helped at all. You might feel like giving up.

Don’t.

The truth: There is no relationship between the price of a skin cream or lotion and the quality of its ingredients. Many big names in skin care spend their money on advertising, not ingredients or science.

But you can have stronger, more flexible skin. Nourish your skin, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly it improves. Skin cells are replaced, on average, every 35 days. So in a month or a little longer, with proper nourishment, new skin cells can begin to improve your skin’s strength and flexibility. You’ll begin to see and feel a difference.

And people who know you will begin noticing and giving you compliments.

So what causes aging skin? The three biggest causes are loss of collagen and elastin; loss of hyaluronan (or hyaluronic acid); and oxidation damage. Poor nutrition underlies all of these. Here’s how to give your skin what it needs.

— A word about food. The foods that are great for your health are also the best for your skin. Fish and lean meats, vegetables (especially salads, the deeper the colors the better) and fruits (same deep colors, especially berries, whole fruit is much better than juice) are all wonderful nourishment. Foods with sugar added (high-fructose corn syrup is the cheapest, the most common and the worst for your health), and simple starches like bread, prepared cereals, cakes, cookies and pizza crust, all raise sugar levels in your blood.

And sugar causes a nasty thing called glycation:

In glycation, a molecule (usually a sugar molecule, what else?) attaches to a healthy protein and becomes a sticky molecule that sticks together in clumps or chains. Called Advanced Glycation End-products or AGEs, they destroy collagen and elastin in the skin and lead to skin aging and wrinkles. So you really need to cut back on sugar and starch.

— Take a supplement containing carnosine and SAMe — The minimums to look for are 50 mg a day of carnosine and 15 mg of SAMe. Carnosine (not carnitine, they only sound alike) is the only natural substance that prevents glycation.

SAMe is vital because it’s the most important nutrient to give you balanced, healthy methylation — and methylation, whether you’ve ever heard of it or not, is essential to life and is usually breaking down in aging skin.

Both carnosine and SAMe, like all nutrients, works best with other ingredients in a formula created by experts.

In a skin lotion, the same thing is true. You need a combination of ingredients that work to nourish your skin. I name some great ingredients on my website, and recommend several skin creams to nourish aging skin.