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The Delicious Path
of Anti Aging Nutrition
By Rebecca Prescott
 Plant
nutrients play a key role in
anti aging. Fruit, vegetables,
and plant extracts have an array
of chemical constituents, called
phytochemicals or phytonutrients,
that are hugely beneficial to
skin health and beauty.
In plants, phytochemicals confer
characteristics like color,
which can help the plant by
providing an attractive beacon
to passing bees to help in
pollination. Or they offer a
protective effect to the plant
to prevent insects from harming
it, or repel grazing animals.
But they have often been found
to have benefits for human
health when analyzed in
laboratories. It is these
chemicals in plants that make
fruit and vegetables so much
more valuable than simply the
macro nutrients like vitamin C.
Antioxidants are one class of
phytonutrients, though there are
many. Antioxidants work by
supplying an extra oxygen
molecule to those molecules that
are missing one, called free
radicals. If antioxidants don't
supply the missing oxygen
molecule to free radicals, the
free radicals will take an
oxygen molecule from another
compound in the body, making one
that was previously healthy and
intact itself a free radical.
Free radicals are not 'baddies',
simply unstable chemical
molecules, but the effect they
have on the body is negative, as
they can damage cells. Free
radicals are produced as a
normal by product of the
metabolic processes of our
cells, as well as by our immune
system as it counteracts the
effects of pathogens and the
environment.
The trick is to keep the balance
in the body where there is
enough of a supply of
antioxidants to cope with the
body's production of free
radicals.
Free radicals affect the skin in
three main ways. They can alter
the fatty layers in your
cellular membranes. These fatty
layers provide structure to the
cell, and control which
nutrients and other agents can
pass in and out. They can alter
the DNA within cells, which
aside from the potential to
develop into serious illnesses,
can make your skin inclined to
wrinkles and sagging before its
natural biological time. Altered
DNA creates a blueprint for
collagen and elastin fibers that
don't function as healthy,
normal ones would. And to
compound matters, the skin's
pores need healthy collagen and
elastin fibers to stay tight and
small. So another undesired
result is open, large pores.
Free radicals also lead to a
process called the cross-linking
of collagen fibers. This occurs
in the skin's dermis, as a
result of collagen and elastin
fibers becoming hard, thick, and
then binding together.
Cross-linked fibers create
wrinkles, skin sag, and cause
your regular expression lines to
become etched in your face as a
permanent fixture. With healthy
collagen and elastin fibers
these expression lines would
simply disappear once you moved
your facial muscles in a
different way. And enzymes that
metabolize collagen are
encouraged by free radicals,
which, given the importance of
collagen in youthful looking
skin, is best minimized.
Other phytonutrients in plants
that are of importance to skin
beauty are carotenoids and
flavanoids. Flavanoids are great
for the health of blood vessels.
They strengthen the capillaries
that supply important nutrients
to the skin's cells, as well as
supporting cellular membranes.
Healthy cell membranes
regenerate quickly, and slow the
aging process. Carotenoids also
strengthen cell membranes. It
seems carrots are not just good
for eyesight! And flavanoids
help reduce inflammation, as
well as increasing levels of
glutathione, which is an
antioxidant.
References: Erica Angyal,
Gorgeous Skin In 30 Days
(Lothian Books, 2005)
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