This is an anti aging skin care guide that tells you some key truths you can't avoid:
-- Why skin cream works best when you're taking care of your health;
-- What treatments and ingredients are dangerous;
-- What kind of anti aging skin care treatment has shown excellent results in clinical testing.
The skin killers are excessive sun, especially sunburn; smoking; and a diet high in sugar, starchy foods and dairy products.
Now, I'm not a fanatic about the sun. I regularly get some sunshine and fresh air. Sunlight is the natural, free source of abundant vitamin D, which most of us in modern countries are lacking. Vitamin D is essential for good health.
But avoid getting sunburned. That's very important.
Most people, even smokers, will agree that smoking is bad for you. Smoking has been shown to cause aging skin, you probably know that, so no lectures here.
But most people don't know that the food you eat makes a big difference in your skin.
Loren Cordain of the University of Colorado, is a researcher on the Paleo diet our ancestors ate. In many studies, he showed that it's possible today to eat similar foods to our ancestors.
When we do, we can eliminate acne when nothing else has worked. (Dermatologists have been telling people for decades that diet has nothing to do with acne. It turns out those "experts" are dead wrong.)
Just as important -- eating right can reverse aging markers, measured by exact scientific standards!
The foods that make the difference are: lean meats and fish; non-starchy vegetables and fruits; and healthy oils, like omega 3 fish oils, canola oil and olive oil.
The foods that make us fat, diabetic, and struggling with heart disease are the same ones that cause acne and wrinkled, sagging skin. They are refined sugar, fatty meats, dairy products and the starchy foods. That includes milk, cheese, grains, cereals, bread, pasta and potatoes. It also includes most vegetable oils that we used to be told were great for health, like soybean oil, to take the most popular example.
The harsh anti aging skin care treatments include dermabrasion (scraping off the outer layer of skin), chemical peels (irritating the skin so the top layer peels off), and cosmetic surgery. All are relatively expensive, none nourish the skin in any way, all have some nasty possible side effects, and all of them have to be repeated as their effects fade.
I avoid them for all those reasons, and I would be a hypocrite to recommend them.
Some dangerous ingredients, I'm sorry to say, are very common in so-called anti aging skin care treatments:
-- The petroleum byproducts, including mineral oil by any of its names, liquid paraffin, paraffin wax, petrolatum and petroleum. They block pores, encourage acne and rapid skin aging, can cause photo-sensitivity so your skin sunburns more easily, and strip your skin's natural oils, leaving your skin drier than ever.
-- Fragrances are a huge variety of chemicals, many toxic. Many affect the central nervous system, causing irritability and depression. Avoid fragrances in skin creams. A light body spray is much better if you just want to smell nice. It doesn't have to be rubbed onto the skin, which causes much more to be absorbed.
-- Acrylamide, common in skin creams, is suspected of causing breast tumors.
-- Polyethylene glycol (PEG), suspected of being carcinogenic.
There's a more complete list on my website.
What works
The main causes of aging skin are well known and widely studied. Anti aging creams can only work by reversing those causes. The most important are:
-- Loss of collagen and elastin, the key proteins the give skin its firmness and elasticity;
-- Loss of hyaluronan or hyaluronic acid, which you might think of as the "glue" that holds collagen and elastin in youthful, healthy skin.
-- Oxidation damage from free radicals in the skin, when your skin is lacking antioxidants from lack of nourishment.
In fact, every one of those can be reversed.
See my website for some modern ingredients which have shown in clinical trials they actually reverse all the major causes of skin aging and make an effective anti aging skin care treatment.
