Your skin requires an appropriate balance of essential vitamins and nutrients to effectively function. The primary duty of your skin is to protect your vital organs and body from harmful foreign substances. Without required vitamins and nutrients, your skin can crack, become scaly, wither, and even begin to fall off. The best vitamins and nutrients for skin health include vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C, protein, fat, and zinc. Read on to learn more about the best vitamins and nutrients for healthy skin.
Maintaining healthy skin helps protect you from bacteria, dirt, ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and dirt. The skin also serves as a communicative filter that properly warns your body when it interacts with a sharp, hot, cold, or otherwise harmful object. Failing to maintain the health of your skin can lead to serious conditions such as dead skin, acne, psoriasis, and eczema.
Vitamins For Skin Health
Your skin serves as a barrier between your vital organs and outdoor elements that may harm them. Among its many functions, your skin works to protect your body from ultraviolet radiation, damage from weather exposure, and foreign bacteria and chemicals. The vitamins known to improve skin health include vitamin A, vitamin E, and vitamin C
Vitamin A prevents sun damage in both the upper and lower layers of the skin by interrupting the process that breaks down collagen. Collagen is a protein that provides structural support to skin tissue and bone density. Vitamin A is also an antioxidant known to provide some protection against ultraviolet rays from the sun.
Vitamin C is essential to the production and maintenance of skin collagen. It helps collagen maintain its elasticity and twisted shape.
Vitamin E is a multifaceted antioxidant which is able to absorb light from the sun before it significantly damages the skin tissue. Several studies have shown that vitamin E can reduce swelling, increase skin thickness, and help to prevent erythema and edema.
Maintaining an appropriate balance of protein, fat, carbohydrates in your diet can keep your kin saturated, hydrated, and healthy. The essential nutrients zinc and selenium have also been found to improve skin health through their antioxidant properties.
The protein you consume from your diet serves as the main building block in amino acids, organic compounds that make up the skin tissue in your body.
Your body’s digestive system turns the proteins you eat into building blocks called amino acids. It then reuses them to make other proteins, including the collagen and keratin that form the structure of skin. Amino acids can also help in the process by which old skin is discarded from the epidermis.
Some amino acids are antioxidants that protect skin cells against UV rays and from "free radicals" made when your body breaks down certain foods.
A diet abundant in healthy fats helps your skin maintain a pristine shine, color, and texture. A few of the best sources of healthy fats include lean meat, nuts like almonds and peanuts, peanut butter, and cheese. The best fats for skin health are polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. Foods rich in these types of fat include walnuts, sunflower seeds, and corn oil.
The outer layer of the skin, the epidermis, has five times as much zinc as the deeper skin layers. Zinc is essential to skin health because it aids in the healing of skin tissue and helps skin cells specialize and divide to heal certain areas of the skin.
Zinc also acts like an antioxidant in certain situations, allowing it to help protect the body against sun damage and ultraviolet radiation.
Selenium is an essential mineral that aids in protecting your skin from harmful ultraviolet rays. Significant selenium deficiency has been linked to a high risk of developing skin cancer.
Overall
Maintaining healthy skin has been shown to improve confidence, protect against skin cancer, and enhance overall health. Skin health is important because the skin serves as a protective and communicative barrier between outside elements and the body’s internal organs.
The best vitamins and nutrients for skin health include vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, protein, and selenium.
