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The Hottest Trend for Summer 2009: Internal Sunscreen

With summer just around the corner we are temped more than ever to spend a day lying in the sun reading a great novel or taking a midday ciesta. Popular belief used to be that if you did such an activity, sunscreen would be your shield against those aggressive skin damaging rays. And while it is vitally important to use a high quality sunscreen, it is not going to entirely erase the premature aging affects.

The dangerous fact is that 90% of premature skin aging is caused by UV radiation, according to The American Academy of Dermatology. Recent scientific studies have also revealed that sunscreen is less effective than originally thought at blocking full spectrum UV rays. In addition, UVA rays, newly recognized as the more damaging of the two, can actually penetrate through windows as well.

So now you are faced with what seems like two choices. Live in the dark, shut the curtains, and take out all of your light bulbs. Or be destined to have a face that more closely resembles a Ralph Lauren Serana riding boot than a porcelain doll. And though we do encourage a life of darkness over one of sun worship, there is an alternative.

The first step is to wear a high quality sunscreen. Surprise, surprise, like all other products in the world, sunscreens are not created equal. Make sure that you look for zinc oxide or avobenzone in the ingredient list to ensure that you are getting both UVA and UVB protection and don’t necessarily trust labels claiming “broad-spectrum” protection because there is no UVA measurement standard in the U.S. The second is to take an ingestible supplement designed to combat the damaging effects of UV radiation.

Nektre Labs, an antioxidant focused skincare company based in California, is at the forefront of the internal sunscreen movement. Internal Affair their debut product is an ingestible supplement designed to repair and prevent UV induced skin damage. Internal Affair contains 20 powerful age-fight micronutrients that work hand in hand to keep your skin youthful and radiant.

Niacin, one of Internal Affair’s key ingredients, has been clinically shown to repair DNA damage caused by UV exposure. Niacin also increases vessel dilation, aiding in the delivery of micronutrients to the upper skin layers. L-Tyrosine, also one of Internal Affair’s key ingredients, is actually a precursor to both CoQ10 and melanin (a product of skin cells that diffuses UV radiation and turns it into heat before it can break apart DNA) acting as both an internal sunscreen and as an antioxidant booster. Pomegranate extract and green tea are also a few of the ingredients that help control free radical damage and inflammation caused by the sun.

Learn 3 Rules for Flawless Skin by Watching Benjamin Button

This past weekend I finally caved and took to the cinema with my wife to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (I have a natural aversion to any movie that is 3+ hours long).

And while yes it was a touching love story that highlights how little time we have on this earth, especially with our true loves, it also got me thinking. We don't have that many years of looking really really attractive either. And frankly that's like top 3 in my life right now.

Sure the latter years will be great and all with the kids out of the house, and the travel, and grand kids etc. but I'm really going to miss looking in the mirror and thinking "I'm looking dead sexy today."

I realized that while I was watching Button I learned some valuable lessons that will keep you looking younger longer.

1. Stop Eating So Much Sugar

I was fortunate to have enough self control (i.e. my wife clinching my scooping arm) to avoid my favorite candy cocktail of sour belts and Reese's pieces. But, I did indulge in about half of a medium popcorn, which as it turns out is pretty sugary (It's classified as Medium bad on the glycemic index at about 55).

It sounds strange but your cells (i.e. you) run off sugar a.k.a. Glucose. The things we eat range from processed sugar, which is immediately available for cell use, to foods that take a while for our bodies to convert to sugar, like brown rice.

At any given time your body only needs a certain amount of this sugar to run properly and when there is a lot of extra roaming about, besides expanding our waistlines, it does something very sinister - it breaks down collagen. Yep, the very same collagen that stops those wrinkles you saw on Brad when he was young, well old but young, and very wrinkly.

That excess sugar, with nothing else to do, pairs up with collagen and elastin proteins and creates advanced glycation end products. This wouldn't be a problem except healthy collagen and elastin is cushy and resilient and AGEs (as they are known) are brittle and dry which causes wrinkles.

Logistics: Try to reduce the consumption of sugar and other high-glycemic foods like candy, white rice, and potatoes. Google "glycemic index" to give you an idea of what foods are good and which aren't.

2. UV Radiation is the Single Biggest Cause of Skin Aging

Watching a movie in the dark may be bad for the eyes (or so I'm told) but it turns out it's great for the skin. Every day you are bombarded by ultraviolet radiation that, while it feels great on a warm day,will destroy your skin over time.

You may not see the results immediately but the effects of UV radiation are powerful and far reaching. Not only do these rays damage the DNA of your skins epidermal layer and the stem cells that regenerate your skin, they easily pass into the dermal layer where your collagen and elastin are. This causes abnormal elastin growth and an enzyme called metalloproteinase to be produced. This enzyme is supposed to repair the damaged collagen but too much ends up hurting the healthy collagen and rebuilding an uneven surface causing wrinkles.

UV light also accelerates the production of melanin which is designed to help shield your skin cells from the radiation. This crates those unattractive solar spots or little brown blotches on your skin (I prefer smooth and even skin.)

Logistics: Live in the dark. Take out all your light bulbs...just kidding! There is a simple solution: wear sunscreen. I'm always amazed at the sheer number of facial moisturizers and prep serums that don't have SPF in them. You should be wearing at least SPF 30 everyday - even if you work indoors. There are many luxurious moisturizers that are light enough to wear under your makeup and that contain SPF 30. Take a trip to your local Sephora and give some a try! And remember, tanning on vacation is fine, but please, skip the tanning beds during the rest of the year and opt for a Mystic. The results are instant and UV free.

3. Consistency is the Key to Success

While Benjamin is busy meeting new people around the retirement home, Daisy spends most of her early adulthood in New York studying to be a professional ballet dancer. Throughout the first half of the movie they often cut to her practicing diligently and precisely. As time goes on she becomes a famous ballerina having performed all over the world and respected as one of the finest American ballet dancers ever produced.

This made me consider the value of consistency in life and this lesson holds especially true when it comes to skincare. If you want great skin then we have to choose a high quality skincare regimen and stick to it. Putting a moisturizer on every other day will help but will never give you the kind of results you could be getting.

What does a high quality regimen look like? Well that's up to you. But I recommend a few basics that will make a HUGE difference in your skin's appearance and texture if you're consistent. The five components are nutricosmetic, cleanser, serum, daily moisturizer, and night cream.

Logistics: Get a good nutricosmetic going and stick with it. Aging is caused by a buildup of DNA damage over time. This was proven recently by scientists who "knocked out" a gene repairing enzyme in mice. The ones who couldn't repair their DNA began aging quickly and exhibited all the physical symptoms of old age like wrinkled skin. Consuming a full range of powerful antioxidants each day will help you stay looking younger longer.

Next is the cleanser. This will clear away the outer layer of dead skin cells which will allow better penetration of your serum.

There are many serums out there so pick one that you like the best and has the active ingredients that work for your particular situation. For example I like a vitamin c serum that helps rebuild collagen. Serums are important because they have a high concentration of active ingredients which can penetrate the outer layers of the skin.

Follow with your daily moisturizer that has SPF 30. (See lesson 2) This will seal in your serum and lock in moisture throughout the day. The night cream is the last step, no SPF needed obviously, but is often overlooked. I know how it is, you get home and your tired. I bet you even go to bed sometimes without washing makeup off your face! Well, don't let that happen to you. Get that stuff off and get the good stuff on before you get your sleep on. It's called beauty sleep for a reason you know.

While we can't all age in reverse like Benjamin Button, these 3 easy lessons can have a big impact on how quickly our skin ages. It just takes a little knowledge and discipline. Try it, consistently, for just a couple of weeks and you will see and feel a noticeable difference in the quality of your skin.

Your Skin's Stem Cells Win "Breakthrough of the Year" of 2008

Well, sort of. It turns out that the very same stem cells that are regenerating our skin day-in and day-out can be converted into embryonic stem cells by changing the cellular instructions.

Pregnant women know the value of excellent nutrition when stem cells are creating an entire person. Well, some of those same stem cells go on to continuously create new skin our entire lives. Maybe we should elevate out nutritional regimen for truly radiant and healthy skin.

USA Today reports:

A crescendo of discoveries pushed stem cells from the lab dish to news headlines this year. Only two years ago, a Japanese research team led by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University announced a method for turning mouse skin cells into unspecialized ones that resembled embryonic stem cells, prized by biomedical researchers for the potential to turn into any kind of tissue. This year, teams made use of the discovery in human cells to earn "Breakthrough of the Year" status from Science magazine.

For the first time, two teams created families of induced pluripotent cells — unspecialized cells derived from specialized cells — from patients suffering 11 different diseases, including Parkinson's disease and juvenile diabetes. And a team led by Harvard's Doug Melton demonstrated "lineage switching" in a Nature journal study, switching ordinary kidney cells into specialized tissues that produce insulin in mice. The end goal of cell reprogrammers is to create immune-system-friendly transplant tissues for patients.

When you're ready for truly luxurious skin consider upgrading to Internal Affair.

Is Your Diet Giving You Wrinkles?

from RealAge

Wrinkles may be an inevitable part of aging, but that doesn't mean fighting them is useless. Protecting your skin from exposure to ultraviolet radiation is the most significant thing you can do to prevent wrinkles, sagging, and discoloration. And, some people try invasive techniques, such as chemical peels, Botox, dermal fillers, or surgery.

But those efforts are all done from the outside. What about protecting your skin from the inside?

Can something as simple as modifying what you eat and drink help you smooth the lines on your face or prevent future wrinkles?

Erase wrinkles NO, look younger YES
Studies show that what you eat, or don't eat, has a definite effect on the health of your skin. As the outermost barrier of the body and your largest organ, the skin is continuously exposed to various sources of stress, including many environmental factors. So, although a new diet won't clear away all your wrinkles or halt skin aging, nutrition can make a huge difference not only in how you look, but also how you feel. This in turn will influence how young or old you may appear to be.

Food fight... against aging
Researchers are just beginning to explore the extent of diet's role in the skin aging process. One recent study revealed that people whose diets are rich in vegetables, beans, olive oil, nuts, and multigrain breads are less likely to wrinkle than those who feast on red meat, butter, and sugary foods.

Experts suspect that antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E and the minerals zinc and selenium may keep wrinkles at bay by reducing the amount of potentially damaging free radicals produced by skin cells. One study revealed that a supplement that included a combination of these antioxidant vitamins helped protect the skin from aging due to solar UV exposure.

Consider this. With all the new research demonstrating that antioxidants and anti-inflammatories help slow the skin aging process how are you not taking a daily skin supplement like Internal Affair?

YOU! Being Beautiful, from the Introduction

This excerpt is from the new book, YOU! Being Beautiful by Drs. Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz. It is generally a well written book that takes a scientific approach to beauty, although it covers the entire gamut, not just focusing on skin. Having said that, the section on your skin is done pretty well, in particular the explanation and illustration of how and why our skin ages. Advanced beauty consumers may want to skip this one as much of the information is beginner level.

YOU: Being Beautiful is really about the fact that we're all hardwired with automatic thoughts and perceptions about beauty. That means that many of these ideas have evolved over thousands of years to form a foundation for human behavior, emphasizing that it's especially hard to overcome some of the automatic drives.

To that end, beauty is very serious business—as in survival-of-the-species serious. When we think about survival of the species (living long enough to pass your genes on to the next generation), it's natural to emphasize the survival part of the equation. But when it comes down to a choice between surviving and breeding, breeding often wins. (Think of male grizzlies fighting to the death for a mate.) Considering the stakes, you'd better be sure that the object of your affection (that man with those magnificent abs) is worthy of the effort to attract him. But how can you know for sure? Thankfully, just like the metal detector–toting treasure hunter who leaves luck and serendipity to the amateurs, you come fully equipped with your own professional-grade beauty detectors.

When we spot a particularly attractive person, somewhere deep in our reptilian brains, a beauty alarm goes off. It tells us when we've struck gold, and it does so automatically and subconsciously. Just like a reflex, it's automatic, impossible to stop, and Annie Oakley accurate. Your beauty detectors have the mathematical precision of a Swiss watch, and this precision comes in the form of some very specific numbers that you'll learn about in this book, including something called the Fibonacci sequence. You'll also learn that's the reason why we make so many decisions with our emotions and not our logic; those decisions play a major role in how beautiful and healthy we feel.

Spotlight On: Green Tea

"It's one of the most powerful antioxidants around", says Leslie Baumann, MD, director of the Cosmetic Medicine and Research Institute at the University of Miami, who drinks 3 cups a day to fight the free radical damage and inflammation that can contribute to skin aging.

The Bottom Line: Skin experts know that Antioxidants, like the Green Tea Leaf extract in Internal Affair, do make a difference to the quality of your skin. Remember, the inside-out / outside-in approach is superior and scientifically proven.