Skin Health
« Previous EntriesHabits That Keep Your Skin Healthy and Beautiful Part 1
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
There is consensus among scientists and physicians as to what habits are consistent with youthful, healthy skin. Follow their advice and you’ll maintain a youthful appearance for years and years.
Keep the weight you had in high school. Fat cells produce hormones that raise the risk of type 2 diabetes and even generate substances called cytokines that cause inflammation. Excessive weight contributes to the stiffening of the arteries and the malfunction of other organs. It has also been linked to a variety of some cancers.
Add alpha-lipoic acid and acetyl L-carnitine to your daily supplement regime. They appear exceedingly safe and readily available at stores. They are not expensive supplements either.
Reduce your overall daily caloric intake. You could see dramatic results by just skipping one meal a day. Calorie restrictions seem to improve blood insulin levels and protect from damage to the DNA. Eating less food, scientists believe, may reduce tissue wear and tear from excess blood sugar, inflammation and free radicals.
Welcome a pet to your home. Studies show that owning a pet reduces the number of visits to the doctor, prolongs survival after a heart attack and even wards off depression. Pets also protect against the main problem of aging: high blood pressure. Stress reduction is the key mechanism by which a pet can help you stay young. Remember, though, to choose your pet carefully. Strike a balance between your lifestyle and the needs of your chosen pet.
Manage chronic pain. Continuous pain damages the immune system and it can also cause deep depression and push up levels of the harmful stress hormone cortisol. Your mood will surely improve and your immune system will reap the benefits of a pain free daily existence.
Walk around the block. Walking will make the walls of your arteries twice as flexible as those of a sedentary individual. A 30 minute brisk walk daily, 5 days a week, will do the trick. Age and lack of exercise make the walls of your blood vessels brittle, and that is the reason why two-thirds individuals 60 and above have high blood pressure. Moderate exercise also reduces the risk of diabetes, cancer, depression, aging of the skin and early onset dementia.
Holistic Skin Care Solutions & What Products to Look For
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
Holistic skin care routines require that you consider the health of your whole body, treating problems from the inside out and from the outside in. Caring for the mind or spirit is part of the equation, too.
It’s interesting to note that scientific research continues to prove that ancient Ayurvedic and other healthcare practitioners were right. Modern cosmetic companies were wrong. The mainstream medical community might not have the right ideas, either.
All of the systems of the body are interconnected. Things that affect a part of the whole will eventually affect all of it. Drugs that address only symptoms or only a piece of the equation are only modestly effective. Oftentimes, they work temporarily, but become ineffective over time, if they don’t make the problem worse.
Take for example, psoriasis. It’s a chronic inflammatory condition that causes the appearance of red spots on a person’s body. Eventually, the spots may become plaques composed of dead skin cells that cannot be sloughed off.
The mainstream medical community refers to psoriasis as an autoimmune disease, because inflammation occurs for no known reason. A holistic skin care practitioner would look for the underlying causes of inflammation, evaluating a person’s diet and the things that they put on the outside of their bodies.
At one time, doctors prescribed drugs for severe psoriasis that inhibited essential functions of the immune system. They stopped prescribing the drugs, because people died of serious brain infections as a result of a weakened immune system. What happened to “first do no harm”?
Most doctors know to look for infection and other signs of illness. They don’t always take the time to evaluate a person’s dietary or lifestyle habits. That’s a big mistake.
In holistic skin care, we recommend dietary changes in certain conditions. For example, in psoriasis, one of the things that we would recommend increased intake of omega-3 fatty acid, reduced intake of omega-6s to keep inflammation at bay, without negatively affecting the immune system.
For general health maintenance and to keep our faces and bodies looking as young as possible throughout our lives, we would recommend cutting simple carbohydrates out of the diet. Those include white bread, processed grains, white sugar and starchy Irish potatoes.
We would also recommend some good nutritional supplements, including omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil to reduce inflammation, antioxidants to prevent and repair free radical damage and a good dosage of basic essential vitamins and minerals.
The final key to holistic skin care is the use of good, all natural creams and cleansers. Installing a water purifier on your showerhead is a good idea, because of all of the chemicals in publicly treated supplies.
Using a gentle, all natural cleanser is important. One that is sulfur-based is beneficial for acne and other conditions, because it helps to normalize the skin’s pH level.
After cleansing, the regular use of a moisturizer is essential. Just be careful about the ingredients that you choose. Natural plant-based oils are the ones to look for. Petroleum-based oils and petrochemicals, of all kinds, should be avoided.
There are other tenets of holistic skin care, but if you start with the ones mentioned here, you will be well on your way to looking healthier and younger.
Natural Skin Treatments or Toxic Skin Care?
Sunday, October 18th, 2009You may have gotten to the point where you are wondering whether or not there are any skin treatments out there that really work. You are not alone in your dismay over the performance of many of the products on the market, because there are plenty of others that are as frustrated as you are.
Where is the quality that we should expect when buying cosmetics products?
If you are expecting quality from the products that the major cosmetics companies are forcing down your throat with their constant marketing blitz, then you are not going to be happy with what you get. The truth is that these products will fail you every time, due to the fact that the ingredients that are used to make them are of very questionable quality.
Most of what goes into the various skin treatments on the market are chemical agents, many of which have been under scrutiny for a number of years, because of suspicions that they could possibly be harmful to humans. As a result of numerous studies it has been discovered that a good many of these agents are in fact toxic to humans, and are not safe for you to use.
The cosmetics companies have been able to avoid regulation intended to ban these substances in North America, and many other parts of the world. The European Union however, has been successful in their quest to have these agents removed from use.
Hopefully, the U.S. cosmetics industry will soon be prevented from using ingredients such as these in their products no matter where on the planet they try to produce them.
The only reason that the cosmetic giants are willing to expose you to skin treatments containing neurotoxins and carcinogens, is because they are more cost effective for them to use than the natural ingredients that you should be getting instead.
I will not purchase products from a company that thinks so little of my well being as to feed poisons to me, which is why my products come from the entities governed under the European Union standards.
The formulas that these companies offer you are 100% all natural. What you will get with your purchase are products that contain ingredients that are primarily plant based.
These ingredients provide your skin with the essential nutrients, and antioxidants that are necessary in order for your skin to be healthy. These products will often offer you quite a bit more.
One of the best skin treatments coming out of Europe is the formula developed by a company from New Zealand. What they have done is put together a combination of two ingredients, one a mixture of keratin proteins and the other an extract from a variety of kelp, which actually reverse the process that causes your skin to develop lines and wrinkles.
Their skin treatments allow you to produce more collagen, elastin, and hyaluronic acid, which give your skin back the firm, full, wrinkle free appearance that you used to enjoy. If you want formulas that are safe, and that truly work, then these are the ones that you want to use.