When it comes to your appearance, beauty can come from within, as good health can help you look better. If you want to get younger looking skin, a nutritious diet will help. Certain vitamins and minerals offer skin rejuvenating benefits. You can complement your diet with oral supplements that firm, thicken and rejuvenate skin cells. Knowing which nutrients improve your skin can help you decide which supplements to take.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A helps rejuvenate your skin and prevent loss of elasticity associated with aging by maintaining your skin and repairing damaged skin cells. If you do not have enough vitamin A in your diet, you may suffer from dry skin, which is more likely to look aged and lack suppleness. Harvard School of Public Health advises consuming supplements with vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene, as the retinol form of vitamin A can be toxic in large doses.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an antioxidant, which helps combat the effects of aging on your skin. Antioxidants protect and repair your skin from damaging free radicals in the environment, such as pollution, smoking and sun exposure. Vitamin C can help repair and prevent the adverse effects of the sun, such as age spots, wrinkles and thinning of the skin. Vitamin C promotes elastin production in your skin, which helps your skin look more youthful, thicker and supple.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is also an antioxidant that helps your skin combat such signs of aging as wrinkles, age spots and loss of elasticity. Free radicals in the environment drain your skin of collagen and elastin, which keep your skin youthful looking and supple. When choosing a supplement with vitamin E, make sure it does not have more than the recommended daily amount, as vitamin E can be fatal in large doses, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Minerals
Choosing a supplement with certain minerals can also help rejuvenate and thicken your skin. Copper can make your skin more supple by stimulating your skin cells to produce more elastin. Elastin helps your skin be more flexible and bounce back to good health more quickly after damage or loss of moisture. Selenium is another mineral that can help your skin. Selenium is an antioxidant that helps protect your skin against damage from free radicals, according to the National Institutes of Health's Office of Dietary Supplements.
References
- MayoClinic.com; Vitamin E; April 2011
- Harvard School of Public Health: Vitamin A
- University of Maryland Medical Center; Skin Wrinkles and Blemishes; December 2008
- American Academy of Dermatology: Skin Care on a Budget
- National Institutes of Health: Office of Dietary Supplements: Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Selenium
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