Nutrition is important for health. An unhealthy diet can damage your metabolism, cause weight gain and even affect organs such as your heart and liver.
What you eat also affects the health of another organ — your skin.
As more is learned about how diet affects the body, it's becoming increasingly clear that what you eat can significantly affect the health and aging of your skin
This article takes a look at the best foods for keeping your skin healthy..
How Water Benefits Your Skin
Drinking water is one of the best things you can do to keep your skin in shape. It keeps your skin moist -- and that makes fine lines and wrinkles less noticeable. It also helps your cells take in nutrients and get rid of toxins. And it helps with blood flow, keeping your skin glowing. The common advice is to drink 8 glasses of water a day, but you may not need exactly that many. The water in fruits, veggies, juice, and milk counts toward your total.
Selenium for Your Skin
This mineral may help protect your skin from cells that gather free radicals. Free radicals cause signs of aging like wrinkles and dry skin, tissue damage, and probably some diseases. Selenium may also help prevent skin cancer. You can get it from Brazil nuts, button mushrooms, shrimp, lamb, and fish like snapper, cod, halibut, tuna, and salmon. Cooked beef, light turkey, oysters, sardines, crab, and whole-wheat pasta also have selenium.
Antioxidants for Healthy Cells
Antioxidants are important to slowing and preventing free-radical damage. You can find them in all kinds of foods, especially colorful fruits and vegetables like berries, tomatoes, apricots, beets, squash, spinach, sweet potatoes, tangerines, peppers, and beans.
Fight Free Radicals with CoQ10
Your body makes a key antioxidant called Coenzyme Q10. But as you get older, you make less of it. It's involved in making energy and helping your cells work. You can find CoQ10 in fish like salmon and tuna, poultry, organ meats like liver, and whole grains. If you use a skin product that has CoQ10, it may help soften wrinkles and other signs of aging.
Get Some Healthy Fats
Omega-3s and omega-6s are good fats that help make your skin's natural oil barrier, keeping away dryness and blemishes. Essential fatty acids like these help leave your skin smoother and younger-looking. You can get them from olive and canola oils, flaxseeds, walnuts, and cold-water fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel.
Good Oils for Great Skin
Some oils have more than essential fatty acids. Good-quality ones like extra-virgin olive oil and cold- or expeller-pressed oil are more simply processed than many other kinds. They may have more nutrients that are good for your skin. These oils may also help lube up your skin and keep it looking and feeling healthy.
Antioxidant Powerhouse in a Cup
Green tea may be the closest thing to a magic potion that you can find for your skin. It helps stop inflammation, helps slow DNA damage, and can even help prevent the sun from burning your skin. You can find green tea in lots of cosmetics, but why not go straight to the source: Drink it!
Vitamin A for Skin Repair
Nobody wants dry, flaky skin. So grab an orange, carrot, or slice of cantaloupe. They're loaded with vitamin A. You can also find it in leafy greens, eggs, and low-fat dairy foods. When you use a skin product with vitamin A, your wrinkles and brown spots may look better. Those products, called retinoids, are common prescription treatments for acne and other skin conditions.
Vitamin C: Power Over the Sun
The sun can be tough on your skin. Vitamin C can help protect you. It also helps undo sun damage to collagen and elastin, which firm up your skin. Get vitamin C from red bell peppers, citrus fruits, papayas, kiwis, broccoli, greens, and brussels sprouts.
Vitamin E: Booster of Skin Health
Another antioxidant that may help save your skin from sun damage and inflammation is vitamin E. Get it from vegetable oils, nuts, seeds, olives, spinach, asparagus, and leafy greens.