Wrinkles, THE most dreaded visual aspect of aging. We all want to preserve our youthful appearance as we age. We want to hold onto the smooth, soft face of our youth. Alas, smooth skin is a bit farther back on the priority list of nature, behind fighting off the saber tooth tiger and keeping your face from falling off due to frostbite. This doesn’t mean that beautiful skin can’t be at the top of your priority list! So, how do we naturally get rid of the wrinkles on our face, and body?
First, Understand How And Why Wrinkles Form
You will hear a great many reasons why wrinkles form on your face:
-Excess sun exposure (In fact scientists claim that about 90% of skin aging is due to UV/sun damage.)
-Smoking
-Sleep deprivation
-Poor diet
-Aging
-Free radicals
-Stress in general
The important piece of wisdom to learn is that all of these stresses cause wrinkles through one same biological degenerative process.
This one process can be prevented and to a degree reversed.
So how do all of these stressors cause the formation of wrinkles?
Through the breakdown and loss of collagen structure in the skin.
What Is Collagen And Why Does Collagen Loss = Wrinkles?
Collagen is a major structural protein in your body that makes up your joints and your skin among other important tissues. When the collagen in your skin is damaged through free radical exposure, it slowly breaks down. If you don’t focus on building and maintaining robust collagen structure, your skin will thin out.
Once your skin has become significantly thinner, it literally begins to fold in on itself, especially in areas where facial muscles compress the skin. These areas are the smile lines, the areas around and under the eyes and the forehead lines.
Over exposure to UV light causes an over load of free radicals which breaks down your skin’s collagen structure. Smoking and poor diet cause free radical damage, which breaks down collagen. Through aging, these stresses add up and the collagen structure in our skin dissolves away leaving our skin thin and weathered.
So if we can not only prevent collagen breakdown, but rebuild our skin’s collagen structure, we will prevent and reverse wrinkle formation.
How Do You Prevent Collagen Breakdown
First you should learn how to prevent collagen breakdown, next I will discuss how you can actually rebuild collagen.
To prevent collagen breakdown, you need to neutralize the number one cause of collagen breakdown, which is free radical exposure. Whether caused by excess sun, junk food, smoking or any other skin blasting stress, the culprit is generation of harmful free radicals.
Free radicals are atoms with an odd number of electrons. Since these atoms need electrons to be paired, they will steal electrons from your body to pair up their electrons. This then causes a domino effect of destruction since now you have cells with unpaired electrons which will begin stealing electrons from your other healthy cells.
So how do we beat these free radicals? Nature designed antioxidants as the fire hose to quench the fire that is free radicals. Antioxidants contain extra electron donors which immediately neutralize the free radicals.
So by ensuring that you always have an abundance of powerful antioxidants in your blood stream, your skin, and entire body, will be safe from free radicals.
There are two types of antioxidants, water soluble and fat soluble. Why? Because every cell in your body has a water soluble and a fat soluble fraction. Water soluble antioxidants protect the water soluble fraction of your cells while fat soluble antioxidants protect the fat soluble fraction of your cells against free radicals.
The most well known water soluble antioxidant is vitamin C while the most well known fat soluble antioxidant is vitamin E. Though these are required through your diet, in my opinion, by far the best antioxidant, not only for your skin, but for your entire body, is called astaxanthin. Please let me tell you why.
Astaxanthin is special because when ingested, it protects both the water and fat soluble fraction of your cells. And unlike common antioxidants like beta-carotene, astaxanthin crosses the blood-brain barrier and the blood retinol barrier. So while many antioxidants don’t even make it inside your brain or the retina of your eyes, astaxanthin freely passes into these tissues to paint them with its anti-aging protection. Of course astaxanthin is also stored in the skin where it actually acts as a powerful internal sunscreen.
Not only does astaxanthin make it into places other antioxidants can’t go, it is also many times more powerful than the other antioxidants. For example, when it comes to free radical scavenging, astaxanthin is 65 times more powerful than vitamin C, 54 times more powerful than beta-carotene, and 14 times more powerful than vitamin E.
Another reason astaxanthin is my top antioxidant is that it stores up and accumulates into your tissues for long lasting 24/7 protection. Meanwhile, if you take vitamin C, it is completely metabolized from your body after just 4 hours. You can take one capsule of astaxanthin (3 mg dose minimum) once per day and every cell in your body will completely protected from free radical aging every second of your life. Because of its dominant antioxidant power, astaxanthin is well studied to also prevent heart disease, cancer and many other degenerative diseases.
An added benefit of consuming astaxanthin is that after about a week of taking high dosages, your skin gains a deep rich healthy color. This is actually the carotenoid astaxanthin stored and visible in your skin. A study that showed dietary carotenoid induced skin color deepening is perceived as more attractive than sun-tan deepened skin color. (Lefevre et al. 2014) This is an evolutionary visual that we use to determine the health of potential mates. Spotting pigments like astaxanthin in the skin is an indicator of a nutrient packed diet.
The second nutrient I recommend for skin wrinkle prevention would be EPA and DHA omega 3 oils. Why?
Omega 3 is the evolutionarily required ingredient to the membrane of your skin cells. The membrane is the most important part for the health and survival of a cell. Without omega 3 in your diet, you don’t have healthy skin cell membranes, without a healthy membrane, the cell can’t keep toxins out of your cells and you can’t bring vital nutrients in your cells.
This is the reason that omega 3s are the most foundational supplement to not only beauty, but also health and longevity.
Another way omega 3 oils preserve skin beauty is by drastically reducing inflammation in your body. This is how omega 3 helps prevent heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s along with several other degenerative diseases.
How To Rebuild Your Collagen Structure To Reverse Skin Wrinkles
How would you leverage nutrition to build muscles? You would eat muscle meat, an ideal protein source that contains the exact amino acids required to generate new muscle tissue in your own body.
It is no surprise that this is the same way your body maintains and regenerates your collagen structure (skin/joints). When you consume dietary collagen, your body immediately begins regenerating collagen in your skin and joints.
One study (Evans et al. 2020) with one group consuming a collagen supplement and the other group abstaining showed that the collagen group scored 35% lower in the “wrinkle score” after 12 weeks. Participants in the collagen supplemental group reported greater percentage improvements in overall skin score (9%) and wrinkle (15%), elasticity (23%), hydration (14%), radiance (22%), and firmness (25%) scores vs placebo.
The amino acids in gelatin that build your skin and joints are proline, hydroxyproline and glycine. These amino acids are hard to find in high enough concentrations in other foods. Of course gelatin is loaded with these joint building blocks.
As a modern culture, our issue is that we don’t eat enough collagen anymore. 98% of people eat a standard western diet which only contains muscle meat. We discard the rest of our farmed animals as waste.
Wild humans would consume just about every bit of the animal. They would consume the collagen off of the bones by cooking it into a bone broth.
In our modern world, we don’t have to cook bone broths every day, powdered gelatin is an extremely convenient way to feed your skin.
I get gelatin hydrolysate, different from most gelatin granules, gelatin hydrolysate is enzymatically broken down into extremely small granules. Because of this, it immediately mixes into even cold water, unlike gelatin granules, which must be cooked to dissolve.
I take a heaping tablespoon of gelatin before bed. Why? The glycine in it improves sleep quality and increases sleeping human growth hormone release.
A Few More Gelatin Skin Regeneration Studies
-(Bianchi et al. 2022) This study had two groups, one consuming collagen/gelatin and one going without. The results were as follows. Skin softness statistically improved in 35 percent and 54 percent of participants in the collagen group after 28 and 56 days of treatment, respectively. Skin smoothness statistically improved in 27 percent and 46 percent of participants in the collagen group after 28 and 56 days of treatment, respectively. Skin firmness statistically improved in 27 percent and 58 percent of participants in the collagen group after 28 and 56 days of treatment, respectively. Wrinkle visibility was reduced in the 38 percent of participants in the collagen group after 56 days of treatment.
–Another study (Tanaka et al. 2009) showed that dietary collagen inhibited the skin damage caused by over exposure to UVB radiation. Not only does gelatin rebuild your skin and joints, it protects it from the harsh sun like an internal sunscreen! This is exciting stuff as we remember that scientists have claimed around 90% of skin aging is a result of sun exposure.
–The last study (SOUKEN laboratory 2008) that I will mention showed that after just 2 months of collagen supplementation skin hydration increased by 91%. Think of your skin with almost twice the moisture, without any topical moisturizers!
Summary
So the basic fundamental 2 step strategy for preventing and reversing wrinkles in the skin is,
1. Use powerful antioxidants to neutralize free radical damage that breaks down collagen structure.
2. Feed your collagen with… collagen. Consume gelatin for its vital building blocks which are required to regenerate your skin. This is the foundational strategy to keep your skin thick and more free from wrinkles.
Extra Credit (Beyond Natural Methods)
For those that want to go beyond the natural methods or skin rejuvenation, I will recommend the two most powerful options for skin remodeling and regeneration.
–Retinols– Prescription strength topical retinols are well studied as a premiere anti aging options when it comes to creams/gels. Retinols work by very significantly stimulating collagen production in the skin, the most dramatic effects are noted after years of use. “Retin A” is the classic and longest used but it still requires prescription. The brand “Differin” contains the more modern retinol called adapalene which has less side effects and appears to be just as effective in collagen stimulation. It also was a prescription drug until recently it became over the counter. For these reasons I recommend Differin. Remember that retinols increase your skins sensitivity to UV damage so avoid sun especially after application! Start by applying every other night and work up to once nightly application over the course of a few weeks.
There are many studies for both of these retinols showing improvement in wrinkles, hyperpigmentation and texture issues. I will just link this one study that compared both Retin A and adapalene. The study concluded that they both work about as well as each other for wrinkle reduction. (Bagatin et al. 2018)
-Laser Therapy-
Laser therapies, while not exactly a natural or conservative method, represent the pinnacle of technological advancements in anti-aging skin treatments. These procedures utilize concentrated beams of light to target various skin concerns, from wrinkles and fine lines to hyperpigmentation and scarring. The precision of laser treatments allows for customized care, directly addressing problem areas without damaging surrounding tissues, which enhances effectiveness and minimizes recovery time. The high cost is attributed to the sophisticated technology involved, the need for highly skilled practitioners, and the enduring results that often surpass those of traditional methods. Consequently, despite the expense, laser therapies are considered the gold standard for those seeking significant, lasting improvements in skin health and appearance.
Here is an in depth study delving into all the laser types, applications, benefits and more. (Beigvand et al. 2020)
If you want to read more about how astaxanthin is a natural sunscreen and preserves your skin youth here is my article on that.
If you want to read more about the benefits of gelatin here is my article about how it can regenerate joints and skin.
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