Nutritional skin care: health effects of micronutrients and fatty acids

Abstract

Human skin is continuously exposed to internal and external influences that may alter its condition and functioning. As a consequence, the skin may undergo alterations leading to photoaging, inflammation, immune dysfunction, imbalanced epidermal homeostasis, or other skin disorders. Modern nutritional science is developing new insights into the relation between food intake and health, and effects of food ingredients may prove to be biologically relevant for optimal skin condition. The objective of this review was to evaluate the present knowledge about the interrelation of nutrients and skin, particularly the photoprotective effects of nutrients, the influences of nutrients on cutaneous immune responses, and therapeutic actions of nutrients in skin disorders. The nutrients of focus were vitamins, carotenoids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Supplementation with these nutrients was shown to provide protection against ultraviolet light, although the sun-protection factor was relatively small compared with that of topical sunscreens. An increase in delayed-type hypersensitivity skin responses after supplementation with nutrients has proven beneficial, especially in elderly people, and may boost cell-mediated immunity. Dietary consumption of certain plants or fish oil is known to modulate the balance of lipid inflammatory mediators and, therefore, is valuable in the treatment of inflammatory skin disorders. It was concluded that nutritional factors exert promising actions on the skin, but information on the effects of low-to-moderate doses of nutrients consumed long term by healthy individuals is obviously lacking, as are data on direct effects on basal skin properties, including hydration, sebum production, and elasticity.

Oral Intake of Soy Isoflavone Aglycone Improves the Aged Skin of Adult Women

“…In fact, topical use of a variety of antioxidants including nutrients such as vitamin C ( 28 ) and vitamin E ( 29 ) has proved effective. Furthermore, there are studies demonstrating that oral intake of those vitamins, carotenoids, and n -3 polyunsaturated fatty acids inhibits actinic skin aging in humans ( 30 ). These data are consistent with those from an epidemiological study ( 31 ) that explored the relationship between actinic skin aging, especially wrinkles, and various foods routinely ingested by the human population all over the world, which varies in terms of races and dietary habits; the epidemiological study showed that aging of the skin was significantly milder in a population taking a large variety of foods including vegetables, olive oil, and fish than in populations with other dietary habits.…”

Can dietary intake influence perception of and measured appearance? A Systematic Review

“…It is not surprising that many of the retrieved studies focus on skin as this organ plays a major role in physical appearance, with its functioning and attractiveness known to be dependent on nutrition, particularly the intake of antioxidant vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids [40].…”

Effect of a novel dietary supplement on skin aging in post-menopausal women

“…Thus the biological understanding of aging of the skin has made prevention possible and treatments for example tretinoin and alpha-hydroxy acids (Olsen et al, 1992) more efficient. In addition to topical treatments, dietary consumption of certain plants or fish oil have also been found to modulate the balance of lipid inflammatory mediators and are therefore valuable in the treatment of inflammatory skin disorders (Boelsma et al, 2001). A food supplement of marine origin has also been found to improve the appearance of photoaged skin (Heule, 1992;Heule, 1994;Sigler and Rasmussen, 2003;Sigler et al, 2004) after up to 1 year of treatment with no serious side-effects related to the treatment (Kieffer and Efsen, 1998).…”