How To Reverse Aging Skin

Diets, Vitamins and Treatments You Need To Know About

Skin is a many layered thing. Yes, there’s the epidermis, the dermis and the hypodermis for you overly technical people out there. But to achieve ageless or less rapidly aging skin you need to approach it both from the inside and out.

It’s not just about topical lotions and potions and other “hope in a jar” products. Who DOESN’T want to believe that we can reverse age skin with a nightly regimen? Sadly, it’s not so easy.

Aging skin is the result of the loss of cellular efficiency. Cellular what? You heard me!

Here’s what I mean: if your cell metabolism becomes inefficient, you lose the ability to restore your cells. It all comes down to how much our cells become injured and how quickly and effectively our body can heal and restore that injury. When your cells lose the ability to get rid of free radicals and oxidative stress (things that injure our cells), unhealthy levels of destructive acids build up inside to create MORE damage and aging. This means supporting your cells internal machinery will make everything else you do far more effective in achieving healthy, beautiful skin.

What happens when skin ages?

• You develop fine lines and wrinkles
• You lose volume leading to increased sag factor
• Your skin becomes thinner and dryer. Fabulous…
• You become unaware of your left car blinker staying on indefinitely
• The elasticity of your skin goes down (think crepe paper)
• You accumulate brown spots and splotches like a map of the world
• Music is always played way too loud
• Your hair starts to thin
• You can’t see with or without your glasses

Sound familiar?

What actually happens when our skin ages?

• We lose collagen. Collagen is a protein that serves as one of the main building blocks for your bones, skin, hair, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. It’s what keeps our skin from sagging, giving us that plump, youthful look.
• We lose elastin. Elastin is a protein that allows the skin to be flexible and “bounce back” from stress.
• We lose stem cells that regenerate our skin.
• We lose hyaluronic acid, a chemical that helps tissue hold onto water that keeps the skin fuller and reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
• We become more susceptible to the damaging effects of UV light from the sun and from too much blue light around us.

These are the areas that we want to target so let’s keep our eyes on the prize people.

How to improve cellular efficiency and reduce the effects of wear and tear on our skin

Don’t Get Older

• Yes, getting older lowers the cellular health of your skin. No matter how many birthdays you have where you turn “39” you can’t chronologically turn back the hands of time. Unless you’re my mother who literally had me believing she was 10 years younger than her actual age until I found her passport that said otherwise. But here’s what you CAN do.

Reduce Environmental Exposures

• Photodamage is related to 80% of skin aging. EIGHTY PERCENT!
• Radiation from the sun is the number one source of UV light radiation exposure but don’t discount the radiation from constant blue light exposure from computer, TV and phone screens. It’s not just the sun that contributes to photodamage. Blue light is the devil. The devil I tell you! It messes up your sleep patterns, your cortisol levels, AND photo damages your skin.
• Tobacco smoke, environmental pollutants, herbicides, pesticides, and other air pollutants are huge contributors to skin aging. Please avoid.
• DO’S and DONT’S: Use sunscreen, liberally and frequently. Wear hats out in the sun. Avoid direct sun exposure to your face. Reduce computer, TV and phone screen exposures.

Fix Your Hormones

• ESTROGEN — Menopause leads to the loss of many hormones, most predominantly estrogen. This is a massive hit to the skin. Estrogen creates collagen and elastin, improves blood flow, and reduces wrinkles. I’m not suggesting this is the only reason to consider hormone replacement therapy. But for the right person, this REALLY helps to maintain skin integrity. Speak to your doctor about bioidentical hormone replacement risks and benefits if you feel that this would be a good choice for you to investigate.
• CORTISOL — This stress hormone comes from your adrenal gland and when chronically elevated, can actually promote the loss of collagen. Unrelenting stressors either emotional, psychological, or physical lead to premature aging. Vitamin C is a great way to reduce runaway cortisol production. One study found that 1000mg 3x/day helped to reduce blood pressure, lower cortisol production and improved the psychological response to stress. It also is a very important factor for cross-linking collagen. Ultimately you need to get to root cause of abnormal cortisol levels (like blood sugar issues, stressful life, not enough sleep, too much caffeine, not enough or right kind of exercise, and yada yada.)
• DHEA — This is known as the anti-aging hormone produced from the adrenal gland. This of course gradually declines with age. One researcher found that 50 mg of DHEA a day for one year improved skin oil production, skin pigmentation, improved moisture and skin thickness. Not bad for the unsung hero of hormones!!

Fix Your Food

• Eating more than 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day reduces the amount of ACID produced in our body. This in turn reduces the excretion of collagen in the urine. Why is this important? Collagen fills up the skin, improves radiance and creates smooth skin. Go Mediterranean. That link provides a 7 day diet plan to consider.
• Take some collagen. Everyone knows about collagen for skin protection. This can definitely help, but it is more important to stop LOSING collagen FROM your skin by eating in a way that protects loss of collagen. But my favorite product is CollaGEN by orthomolecular. 1 scoop a day is a game changer for skin texture and integrity.
• Easy on the protein. Protein intake (especially animal products) results in the production of ACID in the body. Acid is not exactly ideal for skin and as we age it also can impede the kidney’s ability to get rid of other skin aging toxins.
• Hydrate daily. This improves the excretion of toxins. Dilution is the Solution to Pollution people!!

Beef Up Your Anti-inflammatories and Your Antioxidants

Because we are overwhelmed with free radical and oxidative stress exposures, supporting detoxification, reducing inflammation and including antioxidants are priorities. What are my top picks?

• Vitamin C — 1000mg 3x/day (serious protection against free radicals and oxidative stressors)
• Glutathione — 500mg 2x/day (master liver antioxidant needed to detoxify harmful chemicals, toxins and hormones)
• NAC — 600mg 2x/day (N-acetyl cysteine — precursor to glutathione)
• Resveratrol — neutralizes free radicals in the skin which can help your skin repair and defend itself. Use 100mg 1-2x/day
• Super Turmero — (a potent curcumin turmeric blend that knocks the socks off of inflammation in the body) 1-2 tsps a day
• A good all around vitamin and mineral complex — to cover all the bases.

Treatments to consider — I need an intervention!

Let’s take this to the next level. Doing all the right things above helps to improve skin health from the inside out. But there are some amazing techniques to rapidly reverse the appearance of aging skin. There are a lot, but I’m going to mention the top three non-injectable treatments that are serious game changers.

RADIOFREQUENCY MICRONEEDLING with PRP

Hands down the most effective anti-aging treatment to improve collagen, elastin, wrinkling, texture and lifting. This is a must for maintenance of keeping your skin full and plump. Three treatments initially then once a year. Downtime is pretty minimal (2-3 days at most).

CHEMICAL PEELS

Get rid of the old and stimulate the new. Really underrated but so important to achieve reduction in brown spots, fine lines and wrinkles, acne scars and overall skin texture. There is a wide range of solutions used to remove damaged surface layers of skin.

A deep peel (where for 7 days you look terrible and are happy to be wearing a mask and social distancing) is needed at the start if you have a lot of brown spots and sun damage. Like me. I went to dinner several days after my peel and by the end of the evening areas of skin started sloughing off making me look like a billy goat. But WOW, the underlying skin was gorgeous. Over time you just need lighter peels for maintenance. Don’t skip this critical step!

IPL or INTENSE PULSED LIGHT (IPL)

This skin rejuvenation process uses intense pulses of light (duh, it’s in the name) the penetrates deep into the skin. This light energy increases underlying blood flow and collagen production to make skin smoother and more supple. Great for treating rosacea, sun damage, blotchiness, discoloration, fine lines and wrinkles. Walks the dog. Washes the dishes. Car pools. All around a winner!

To summarize:

1. Avoid UV light ✓
2. Avoid pollution ✓
3. Wear sunscreen ✓
4. Eat the rainbow of colorful fruits and lots of vegetables ✓
5. Reduce animal protein ✓
6. Hydrate ✓
7. Bring in select skin supportive supplements and anti-oxidants ✓
8. Use nonsurgical skin care treatments to restore and maintain your skin ✓

That’s all folks!!!

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For more information about my wellness programs and my practice, check out my website drsadaty.com. Hey Look!  You are already here…

Ready for the legal disclaimer? Information offered here is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. As with any health recommendations, please contact your doctor to be sure any changes you wish to consider are safe for you!