by Lisa Drayer
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Since beauty is my business, I'm always on the lookout for the latest trends in fashion and cosmetics. There are worse jobs than reading glossy magazines and noting Hollywood trends to see what's new! I love watching the Oscars with my friends, since they all have completely different tastes and opinions and their discussions get very lively. But while everyone else is critiquing the gowns and shoes and jewelry, I am looking at the stars' flawless skin and expert makeup. These are people who really know how to look good. Their interest in beauty isn't just personal, it's professional. A great dress may get them attention on the red carpet, but a gorgeous complexion will get them the close-up when the cameras are rolling.
Do you have to be a celebrity to have movie star skin? Absolutely not! Gwyneth Paltrow may get exfoliating facial scrubs made with diamonds, but I can tell you how to boost the circulation to your skin by eating the right radiance-inducing foods. Scarlett Johansson was rumored to have three people carrying umbrellas to shield her from the sun, but I can show you how to protect your skin with an antioxidant-rich diet. The best beauty secret isn't a secret at all: when you eat well, you create star-quality skin from the inside out.
You Were Born with Beautiful Skin
Once upon a time you had plump little cheeks and super-soft skin that lifted effortlessly into your baby smiles. When you woke up from a nap, your skin would be glowing and moist and irresistibly kissable. Come on, it wasn't that long ago!
Being skin is hard work, so over the years your skin has lost some of the suppleness it used to have. As the largest organ in the body, your skin has been busy regulating your body temperature and maintaining a barrier between you and the environment. It has been assaulted by soaps and sunlight and buffeted by dry winds. It has protected your organs from ultraviolet radiation, toxic chemicals, and germs. It has enabled you to sweat yet has prevented the vital water in your body from evaporating. It has given your face beautiful expressions, made you blush, and allowed you to feel soft caresses. Your skin has endowed you with your distinctive hair and given you fingernails and toenails to polish.
Over the years your skin accumulates damage—not just on the surface but also underneath. Free radicals break down cell membranes and cause irritation on the cellular level. Your skin gets thinner, and the fat pads underneath diminish and shift, making your skin look looser while accentuating wrinkles. Collagen and elastin—proteins that provide structure and support for your skin—start to break down and are renewed at a slower rate, making your skin saggy and less elastic. With age the skin produces less oil, so it becomes more difficult for it to retain moisture and it becomes drier. The skin around the eyes usually shows the first signs of aging due to the presence of smaller and fewer oil glands there. As you get older, blood vessels in your skin become more fragile, taking away some of the radiance of youth. Some facial expressions, like scowling or squinting, start to etch lines in your face. If you smoke, drink alcohol regularly, or eat poorly, these habits will stress your skin even more. The rate at which your skin loses its firmness and elasticity depends on both factors beyond your control, such as your genetic makeup, and lifestyle factors you can control, such as your exposure to the sun, your skin-care regimen, and of course, your diet!
Your skin is a very strong indicator of your overall health. If you have not been eating a nutrient-rich diet, your skin may get oily and clogged, dry and rough, or flare up with acne. Eczema, psoriasis, and breakouts are not a normal and necessary part of life. Think of these symptoms as your skin trying to get your attention. They may be a sign that you are not meeting your body's nutritional needs. Once you get your diet back in order, your skin will reward you by once again becoming glowing, moist, and irresistibly kissable.
It takes three to four weeks for the skin to renew itself. Sometimes you'll want a quick fix to zap a zit and get you through the short term, but to regain your youthful glow, try my Beauty Diet and follow the super skin recommendations in this chapter for four weeks. Then reward yourself with a special event, because you'll be ready for your own close-up!
Feel the Skin You're In
I'm sure you already know what your skin looks like. Most of us look in the mirror every morning, and for some of us it's a bit of a shock. What I would like you to do now is feel your skin. Check the texture of your neck and face. Does it feel firm and supple or crepelike and saggy? Does it feel plump or thin? Is it smooth or bumpy? Are there places that are dry or oily? Do you feel any areas that are stiff or inflexible?
You probably think of your skin as a very thin layer, but it consists of three layers. Once you understand the processes that occur there, you'll have a better idea why it is so important to supply your skin with the nutrients it needs to renew itself.
Your Face to Face the World: The Epidermis
The epidermis is the outermost layer that protects the body from various environmental stressors. It also has cells that contain melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color. Whether you are aware of it or not, the first thing you notice about other people is probably their epidermis—and it's the first thing other people notice about you.
The outer layer of skin consists of dead cells that are packed into a matrix of lipids (fats). These dead cells are continuously sloughing off, while cells in the lower layer of the epidermis are continuously proliferating, at a rate of millions per day. Cells from the lower layer work their way up to the surface through a differentiation process called keratinization. So the dry, flat cells on the surface of your skin today were actually once upon a time thick, healthy cells from below the surface.
The most important substances in the top layer of the skin are the keratin proteins and skin lipids. The stratum corneum (topmost layer) uses fatty acids, which is why consuming quality fats will give you quality skin. It also includes
BEYOND THE BEAUTY DIET
Smoking and Your Skin
Everybody knows smoking is bad for your lungs, but it also takes a toll on your natural beauty! When you light up—or when you are near someone else who lights up—the cigarette smoke goes into your lungs, and from there into your bloodstream, and then throughout your body.
Each lungful of smoke sends free radicals everywhere, causing oxidative stress in every part of your body. In addition, free-radical damage accumulates below the surface of your skin and ultimately leads to wrinkles.
Cigarette smoke makes your blood vessels constrict, which impairs the blood flow to your skin. This not only makes you look gray but also prevents your body from being able to carry toxins and debris away from your tissues. In addition, it prevents nutrients from reaching the cells in your skin, so they cannot refresh and renew themselves.
Smoking breaks down collagen and elastin in skin, which contributes to wrinkles and sagging.
Cigarette smoke depletes your body's supply of vitamin C, which is a key ingredient for keeping skin plump and moist. Smokers need far more of the antiaging antioxidants because their bodies suffer from far more oxidative stress.
The damage smoking does to your appearance can take 10 years to appear, but it is irreversible. Smoking simply is not compatible with youthful, soft, attractive skin. You can keep smoking, or you can have beautiful skin. Your choice.
a family of lipids called ceramides, which have names like alpha-hydroxy and omega-hydroxy acids. Sound familiar? Some beauty products contain synthetic ceramides to replace those lost during the aging process. These natural lipids are a major component of skin structure, and they allow the skin to retain moisture.
The Award for Best Supporting Role Goes to . . . the Dermis!
The dermis is right under the epidermis. It is a thick, resilient layer of connective tissue that makes up about 90 percent of the skin's depth. Beneath every attractive epidermis is a robust dermis.
The dermis contains collagen and elastin, two interconnected structural proteins that create a dense mesh. Collagen gives skin its resilience and strength, while elastin gives skin
its ability to stretch and snap back. Together they support the nerve endings, muscle cells, sweat glands, sebaceous (oil) glands, hair follicles, and tiny blood vessels in this layer of skin. The dermis also contains special cells called fibro-blasts that synthesize collagen and elastin. The sebaceous glands produce sebum, which lubricates the skin and makes your hair waterproof. These natural oils keep your skin soft and supple and prevent your scalp from getting dry and flaky. When the sebaceous glands become overactive, they produce too much oil, which can lead to clogged pores, blackheads, and pimples. Later in this chapter, I'll explain how to turn troubled skin into terrific skin.
Plump It Up: The Hypodermis
The hypodermis is a subcutaneous layer that consists mostly of fat and provides both insulation and cushioning. This layer is responsible for smooth, plump-looking skin.
Seven Steps for Beautiful Skin from the Inside Out
While some factors are out of your control, you can do a lot to achieve glowing, movie star skin. When you feed your skin with my beauty foods, it will give back to you in the form of a beautiful reflection for years to come. Following are seven ways to keep your skin in top condition by nourishing it from the inside out.
1. Keep Your Skin Hydrated
Soft and supple skin depends on two things: water and fats. This may seem contradictory because the two don't mix, but your skin needs both to retain its youthful texture.
Your skin is 70 percent water, 25 percent protein, and 2 percent lipids. Water plumps up your cells and keeps your skin moist. However, keeping your skin refreshed and hydrated is a challenge because of factors both outside and inside your body. The outer layer of your skin is constantly losing water due to exposure to dry air, sunlight, chemicals, and other elements. This moisture is slow to be replaced since water has to seep up through many layers of skin cells to reach the surface. Water for your skin is even scarcer when your body is dehydrated; your body reduces the amount of moisture in your skin to conserve water for more important functions, like keeping your blood flowing smoothly. If you are chronically dehydrated, your face will look drawn and any wrinkles will become more obvious.
A little-known dietary cause of dehydration is super-high-protein diets. Water loss accounts for the rapid loss of weight at the beginning of these diets. During the first phase of a very-high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, your body burns any glycogen that is stored in your muscles or liver—a process that releases a lot of water. Additionally, the breakdown of amino acids from protein produces urea, which requires large amounts of water to be excreted from the body. And without adequate carbohydrates, fats cannot be metabolized completely, and this leads to the formation of ketone bodies, which have a strong diuretic effect on your kidneys. Bottom line: high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets cause water loss from the body, which can ultimately affect the plumpness of your skin, leaving it dry and wrinkled.
THE BEAUTY DIET RX
For Thirsty Skin
Remember to drink my top two beauty beverages, water and green tea, on a daily basis. Take a bottle of water with you wherever you go and enjoy green tea with an afternoon beauty snack.
Eat quality fats to build flexible cell membranes. It is not difficult to get enough omega-6 fatty acids from your diet because they are relatively common, but you'll want to make a special effort to add more sources of omega-3s. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, the significant sources of omega-3 fatty acids are salmon, walnuts, and spinach. Other fatty fish rich in omega-3s include mackerel, herring, sardines, and trout.
Sprinkle flax, hemp seeds, walnuts, or pumpkin seeds on your salads for additional omega-3s.
Avoid very-high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets.
If you enjoy alcohol, limit it to one beverage and drink lots of water before and after.
Limit caffeine to 300 milligrams per day (two large cups of coffee).
So what can do you to keep your skin hydrated adequately? For one, drink plenty of water and green tea, my favorite beauty beverages. In addition to drinking plenty of fluids, it's important to consume quality fats to keep the lipids in your skin abundant and flexible. The fats you eat are incorporated into your cell membranes, helping the insides of the cells stay plumped up with water. When you don't eat enough healthy fats, skin cells become more permeable and lose moisture. When that happens, your skin may get dry and sensitive, sometimes even red and rough.
Consuming essential fatty acids helps reverse skin problems like eczema, psoriasis, and dry, red, itchy skin. Quality fats, like the omega-3 fats found in walnuts and fish oils, are a key component of the lubricating layer that keeps skin moist and supple. Numerous studies have shown that consuming increased levels of fish oils helps keep the skin flexible and helps skin retain its moisture content. In one study published in the British Journal of Dermatology, volunteers with psoriasis took either capsules of supplementary fish oil or identical-looking capsules of olive oil. The fish oil group had statistically significant improvement in all parameters. Another study published in the American Academy of Dermatology found similar results.
Finally, for maximum hydration, consider limiting your alcohol and caffeine intake. Caffeine causes water loss from your body, including your skin. Additionally, alcohol has a diuretic effect, so in excess it can dehydrate your skin. You might be familiar with the effects of alcohol on your skin when you wake up the morning after a night of drinking! Your skin might look wrinkled and dry. Alcohol can also cause redness and flushing of the face, due to its ability to dilate blood vessels.
2. Age-Proof Your Skin with Antioxidants
As you read in Chapter 1, free radicals are electrically charged molecules produced by sun exposure, air pollution, and other toxins that attack the healthy cells of your body. Free radicals damage protein, DNA, cell membranes, mitochondria, and more.
One free radical can initiate a cascade of damage. Many free radicals together can cause extensive damage. As free-radical damage accumulates, irritation develops at the cellular level. In your skin this eventually manifests itself as fine lines, wrinkles, uneven and dull skin tone, and loss of firmness.
When free radicals target skin's support structures, your skin becomes a battlefield. When free radicals attack elastin, it loses its stretch, making skin saggy. When they attack collagen, this causes cross-linking of the proteins, making skin stiff. In addition, free-radical damage activates enzymes called metalloproteinases, which break down collagen, leading to wrinkles and sagging.
This sounds like a whole army of problems, but the good news is you can protect yourself simply by upping your intake of antioxidants. The body makes its own antioxidants, but it can't keep up with the internal demand—especially these days, when it is exposed to toxins, pollution, x-rays, and other aspects of modern life that cause oxidative stress. Also, the levels of the body's natural antioxidants decrease with age, so adding antioxidants to your diet becomes even more important.
BETA-CAROTENE
As an antioxidant, beta-carotene protects lipid membranes from free-radical damage that can lead to skin aging. This important beauty nutrient also gets converted to vitamin A in the body, which helps to keep skin smooth. While it is beneficial and safe to consume beta-carotene from natural sources, I do not recommend beta-carotene supplements since they may pose risk for harm. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, you'll find significant amounts of beta-carotene in sweet potatoes, spinach, kiwi, and tomatoes. You can also add beta-carotene to your diet with foods like pumpkin, carrots, chilies, mangoes, cantaloupe, and apricots. (For more information, see the section on vitamin A in Chapter 7.)
VITAMIN C
A highly effective antioxidant and collagen-boosting nutrient, vitamin C is a multitasking vitamin you'll be reading about again for its other valuable properties. Because you can't make vitamin C, and because it is water soluble and does not hang around in the body, you need to consume fresh vitamin C in your diet every day. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition is note-worthy because it e
xamined the effect of diet, not supplements, on the skin of everyday women. This study found that a diet high in vitamin C was associated with less dryness and less noticeable wrinkles. In addition to its antioxidant properties, vitamin C promotes healing and cellular repair and is especially important for skin because it is involved in collagen production. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, you'll find significant amounts of vitamin C in kiwi, blueberries, sweet potatoes, spinach, and tomatoes. You can also get your daily dose of vitamin C from foods like peppers, oranges, strawberries, lemons, and broccoli (see the section on vitamin C in Chapter 1).
VITAMIN E
Since it is fat soluble, vitamin E can protect lipid membranes in the skin from free-radical damage. Vitamin E is a good team player: it works with other antioxidants to make them more effective and boosts the effectiveness of certain enzymes that are needed for good skin health, including glutathione peroxidase. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, vitamin E is found in blueberries, kiwifruit, spinach, tomatoes, and walnuts. Other foods rich in vitamin E include wheat germ, sunflower seeds, safflower and sunflower oils, almonds, peaches, prunes, cabbage, asparagus, and avocados. (For more information, see the section on vitamin E later in this chapter.)
SELENIUM
Like vitamin E, selenium plays well with others. It helps create antioxidant enzymes and boosts the potency of vitamin E. Selenium is important for skin because it is incorporated into proteins to make selenoproteins. It can protect skin quality and elasticity because the antioxidant properties of selenoproteins help prevent cellular damage from free radicals. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, you'll find significant amounts of selenium in salmon and oysters. Brazil nuts are an extraordinarily good source of selenium. Other selenium-rich foods include tuna, crab, whole wheat bread, wheat germ, garlic, eggs, and brown rice. (For more information, see details on selenium in Chapter 2.)