Skin Health: The Best Vitamins & Minerals For Your Skin
Video: The Role of Vitamins and Nutrition with Your Skin
Whether you are striving to eliminate acne, reduce eczema flare-ups, or reverse the signs of aging, adding certain vitamins and minerals to your daily regimen may help.
These are the best vitamins and minerals for your skin according to dermatologists:
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant with the ability to shield the skin from a number of environmental pollutants and free radicals. Vitamin C has been proven to boost the skin’s natural UV protective properties, making it a great vitamin for people who are routinely outdoors. Additionally, vitamin C is known to have direct influence on reducing pigmentation issues such as age spots while simultaneously spurring increased collagen production.
Get your vitamin C through a topical serum, preferably one that contains Ferulic acid, which can help increase the stability of the vitamin C as well as boost the skin’s absorption. You can also get vitamin C by adding foods like oranges, strawberries, kiwis, tomatoes, or broccoli to your diet.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a naturally occurring vitamin that can impact the health of the skin in many ways including enhancing the skin’s collagen, reducing pigmentation, regulating oil (sebum) production, and reducing redness or inflammation. Consistent usage of vitamin A-based skin care products can smooth out your wrinkles and even out your skin tone.
To harness the benefits of vitamin A, try a Retin-based skincare product like Retinol or Retinoid (see this blog post for more info). Vitamin A rich foods include carrots, sweet potato, kale, spinach, and eggs.
Vitamin B
The “B” in vitamin B could stand for “boosting” as the vitamin has been shown to help the skin deal with chronic skin issues like acne, eczema, and rosacea. Vitamin B can also be a skin lightening agent.
Increase your intake of vitamin B by taking a multivitamin and eating more poultry, fish, lean beef, low fat dairy, and fortified tofu.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is probably best known for its moisturizing effects, making it a much-needed vitamin for dry skin types. Specifically, this vitamin works to helps the skin maintain its hydration by sealing moisture in. In addition to being an excellent moisturizer, vitamin E has anti-inflammatory properties which can help to calm irritated skin.
Finally, vitamin E actually boosts the skin’s absorption ability. Getting enough vitamin E can actually enhance the effectiveness of skin care products by helping them better penetrate the skin.
Vitamin E rich foods include almonds, avocado, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, and palm oil.
Vitamin K
Vitamin K is very influential in terms of regulating the body’s blood flow as it works to keep the capillaries in the skin fully functioning. This vitamin is particularly useful ingredient in eye creams as it can help reduce undereye dark circles and puffiness.
Foods that are rich in vitamin K include brussels sprouts, collard greens, cabbage, prunes, cucumbers, asparagus, and blueberries.
Minerals
In addition to the above vitamins, there are several minerals that can boost skin health:
- Zinc: A proven anti-inflammatory with many of the same benefits as vitamin A
- Sulfur: A mineral with antibacterial properties that can help control oil (sebum) production
- Zinc Oxide: A key sunscreen ingredient, Zinc Oxide helps protect the skin from sun damage
- Copper: An antioxidant that can also reduce wrinkles by stimulating collagen remodeling.
- Omega 3 Fatty Acids: These can aid in alleviating dry, flakey skin conditions. Your best sources of omega 3s are fatty fish like salmon, walnuts, as well as flax or chia seeds.
Elizabeth Geddes-Bruce, MD is a board certified dermatologist and dermatologic surgeon specializing in the practice of both cosmetic and medical dermatology. Dr. Geddes-Bruce is fellowship-trained in cosmetic dermatology and laser surgery. She served as Chief Resident at one of the nation’s top dermatology programs – The University of Texas at Houston and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
I love what you said about vitamin E’s ability to moisturize and sealing in the skin’s moisture to keep it from getting dried out. I tend to have very dry skin so I’m looking into getting some help from a dermatologist to help my skin recover, but I think knowing what vitamins I can look for is also a good idea. Thank you for the information about how vitamin E is also a good anti-inflammatory to help calm irritated skin since that seems to go along with my dry skin as well.
I really appreciate your information on the best vitamins for your skin’s health and where to find them in foods!
I really like your blog, I love the way you wrote this content. Thanks for sharing such great information with us.
Thanks for providing the useful information. I add vitamin A enrich in my food that even out my skin tone and also smooth out my wrinkles.
I agree with what types of vitamins and minerals our skin needed to keep it healthy and look young. We also have a product that has three-vitamin arsenal and the name is Vitamin Ace Moisturiser it is packed with antioxidants that help boost collagen production and also infused with AHA fruit acid, making our moisturiser a heavyweight champ that’ll brighten and hydrate your skin 24/7.