The Beauty Diet (16 page)

that pack these topical antioxidants: vitamins C and E, zinc, green tea, grape seed, selenium, resveratrol (from the skin of red grapes), pomegranate, Arctic cloudberries, lycopene, quercetin (found in apples, tea, and onions), and coenzyme Q10.

3. Take a multivitamin.
There is no substitute for eating real food with multiple, fresh micronutrients. However, if you are dietarily challenged, it's better to get vitamins from supplements than to risk antioxidant deficiency.

If you've read my first book,
Strong, Slim, and 30!
, you may be familiar with the study I'm about to describe. If not, you're about to get some great news. The study, published in the
Journal of the American College of Nutrition
, examined the diets of 453 adults living in Sweden, Greece, and Australia. After researchers adjusted for confounding factors such as age and smoking, they found that individuals who consumed higher amounts of vegetables, fish, olive oil, and legumes were less prone to skin damage and wrinkling in areas of the skin that were exposed to the sun than those who had a high intake of meat, butter, margarine, high-fat dairy, and sugary foods. In particular, processed red meat, soft drinks, and pastries were associated with extensive skin wrinkling, while foods such as yogurt (one of my Top 10 Beauty Foods), beans, green leafy vegetables,

asparagus, nuts, olives, cherries, apples, pears, melons, dried fruits, tea, and water were associated with less skin aging. In fact, diet accounted for 32 percent of the differences seen in skin wrinkling!

My Beauty Diet maximizes your intake of antiwrinkling foods, such as those mentioned in the study. Check out
Chapter 9
for my meals and beauty snacks that contain these skin-friendly foods.

I'm sorry to disappoint you sun worshipers out there, but if you want to damage your skin, sunbathe. The harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation are well established. Sun exposure generates so many free radicals that the body can't handle them all, resulting in photoaging, immunosuppression, and the possibility of skin cancer. Melanoma, a very serious form of skin cancer, is rapidly increasing: The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2008 there will be 62,480 new cases of melanoma in the United States.

Even a brief encounter between your unprotected skin and the sun can cause sunburn (medical term:
erythema
). Your skin turns red and may even swell (medical term:
edema
). Sun exposure damages the lipids in your skin and creates free radicals, which cause oxidative stress and inflammation on a cellular level. Free radicals consume collagen and elastin, the fibers that support skin structure, causing wrinkles and other signs of premature aging. Free radicals also stimulate the synthesis of melanin, which leads to darker skin pigmentation (tanning). After just one burn, the increase in cell division activity in the skin lasts for days or even weeks, making the skin thicker. With continued exposure to ultraviolet light, the skin changes in appearance and texture, eventually becoming dry and leathery, with wrinkling and sagging.

Here's an idea you can really sink your teeth into: in addition to using a really good sunscreen, you can protect the entire surface of your skin from the
inside out
by adopting an antioxidant-rich diet. To save your skin, you'll want to add a variety of photoprotective foods to your diet. Studies have shown that eating these foods reduces burning and other damage caused by sun exposure. Following are some photoprotective micronutrients that you can add to your diet. After you consume them, they are distributed into your tissues,
where they provide systemic photoprotection. With a little dietary effort, and proper protection, sun damage is completely avoidable.

Dietary carotenoids, found in foods such as watermelon, cantaloupe, carrots, tomatoes, and mangoes, may protect you against sunburn and contribute to lifelong protection against harmful UV radiation. A recent study published in the
Journal of Nutrition
revealed that daily supplementation with carotenoids, including beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene, helped to decrease redness in skin when skin was exposed to ultraviolet light.

Beta-carotene
is used to help individuals who have erythropoietic protoporphyria, a disorder that makes their skin sensitive to visible light. Sun lotions made to absorb UV light are useless to these people. However, high doses of carotenoids effectively decrease their photosensitivity by quenching free radicals. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, beta-carotene can be found in significant amounts in sweet potatoes, spinach, kiwifruit, and tomatoes.

Lycopene
, another photoprotective micronutrient, is the major carotenoid in tomatoes. Research published in
Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences
shows that photoprotective effects are evident after volunteers eat tomato-derived products rich in lycopene. After 12 weeks of lycopene intervention, their sensitivity to UV-induced sunburn was decreased. The study concluded that dietary carotenoids such as lycopene may contribute to lifelong protection against harmful UV radiation. Among my Top 10 Beauty Foods, lycopene is found in significant amounts in tomatoes.

Many studies have investigated the effects of the flavanols in cocoa. One recent study published in
The Journal of Nutrition
looked at the effects of repetitive intakes of cocoa rich in flavanols on skin sensitivity to UV exposure,