On February 28, a report in the Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA) likened vitamins A and beta carotene to death pills
that can expedite your funeral date by as much as five percent. While
this JAMA study may scare consumers away from the vitamin aisle, Harvard
Medical School has issued a guide called "Vitamins and Minerals: What
you Need to Know" to help take the danger and mystery out of supplement
shopping.
Meier J. Stampfer, MD, PhD, a professor of Epidemiology
and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, edited the
report. Highlights of the guide included the following tips:
Make sure supplements are USP verified
When
shopping, choose supplements bearing the U.S. Pharmacopeia Dietary
Supplement Verification Program (USP-DSVP) mark. The USP establishes
public standards for good quality medicines, dietary supplements and
related products used to maintain health and treat disease.
Don't pay for marketing fluff:
According
to the Harvard report, it doesn't matter whether vitamin C is derived
from organic rose hips or synthesized in large batches in a laboratory.
Your body will use the resulting vitamin similarly.
Plus, if you're not allergic to wheat, rice or lactose you don't need to pay extra for allergen-free vitamins.
Watch out for medical dangerous interactions:
Inform
your physician and pharmacists of all of the supplements you take to
ensure that there are no potentially hazardous interactions between your
medicines and the vitamins.
Verify vitamin benefits:
Before
you spend $30 on a bottle of herbs or coenzyme Q10, make sure that
rigorous, large scale studies validate the costs and effectiveness of
the product.
Vitamins Proven to Benefit the Skin
Now that
you know how to shop for vitamins, how do you know which vitamins and
minerals are actually beneficial to the skin? Dermatologist Karen E.
Burke, MD, observes that at least three antioxidants; selenium, vitamin E
and vitamin C, are proven to decrease the effect of the sun on the skin
and prevent further skin damage.
Selenium supports skin elasticity
According
to the American Academy of Dermatology, selenium preserves tissue
elasticity, and slows down the aging and hardening of tissues caused by
oxidation. Also, oral supplements of 50 to 200 micrograms of selenium
can protect the skin from damaging rays of the sun.
Moreover, a
report in the February edition of Cancer Causes and Control reaffirmed
the antioxidant properties of selenium and its ability to reduce certain
incidences of cancer.
Vitamin E protects against skin damage
Like
selenium, vitamin E also possesses cancer preventing properties. For
example, a study released in Carcinogenesis demonstrated that vitamin E
supplements could help protect against tumors caused by ultraviolet
radiation exposure.
In the study, researchers provoked tumors in
mice by exposing them to ultraviolet radiation. Investigators then gave
the mice control meals or meals containing 62.5 international units of
vitamin E per kilogram of body weight. Compared to the mice fed chow
without vitamin E supplementation, the food with vitamin E reduced the
tumor count in the mice by 30%.
Vitamin C promotes healthy skin growth
Similar
to vitamin E, vitamin C repairs free radicals and prevents them from
turning into cancers and accelerating aging. Vitamin C is the most
abundant antioxidant found naturally in the skin and it helps the skin
generate collagen. The protein collage comprises much of the skin.
A
few years ago, researchers from Duke University examined the effect of
vitamin C on the ability of skin cells to create collagen. In this
study, researchers used skin cells from two age groups- newborns aged
eight to three days old and elderly persons aged between 78 to 93 years
old. In the cells not treated with vitamin C, the younger cells spurred
more collagen growth than the elderly cells did.
Yet, once
researchers added vitamin C to both sets of skin cells, the cells
produced collagen at a faster rate in both groups. This led the
investigators to conclude that vitamin C could help counteract the
normal decline of collagen production in aged skin.
While the
latest nutritional gossip may have you emptying all your skin
supplements in the toilet, you may still want to keep selenium and
vitamins E and C around. Nutrition is not only about how you absorb
food, but how you act before, during and after you consume nutrients.
May all your feedings, foods and supplements, fortify you.
Sources:
Silvera,
Stephanie & Thomas Rohan. Trace elements and cancer risk: a review
of the epidemiologic evidence. Cancer Causes and Control, Feb 2007, vol
18, no 1, pp. 7-27(21).
American Academy of Dermatology. Vitamins to protect against and reverse aging: The truth vs. the tall tales. 25 Feb 2002.
Coulter,
Ian D. et al. Antioxidants vitamin C and vitamin E for the prevention
and treatment of cancer. Journal of General Internal Medicine, Jul 2006,
vol 21, no 7, pp. A-7-A-7(1).
Uddin, Ahmed N. Vitamin E and
organoselenium prevent the cocarcinogenic activity of arsenite with
solar UVR in mouse skin. Carcinogenesis, Dec 2005, vol 26, no 12, pp.
2179-2186(8).
Phillips Charlotte L , Susan B Combs and Sheldon R
Pinnell. Effects of ascorbic acid on proliferation and collagen
synthesis in relation to the donor age of human dermal fibroblasts.
Journal of Investigative Dermatology 1994, no 103, pp 228–232.
Best Vitamins For Skin