M5 – HAIR, SKIN and NAILS Health

Nutrients for healthy hair skin and nails will be covered in this lesson.  While talking about these nutrients, we will also learn:

• What anti-nutrient causes big pores?
• Are there ways to make hair grow faster?
• Is there a way to control overly-oily skin naturally?

This will be an exciting module to study with practical application to your life.  

"Reasonable diet and balanced nutrition are important measures to delay aging and prolong life."

says one of the journal articles we will look at.  You are young, so delaying aging and prolonging life may not be as important to you as some of the questions we will be exploring shown above, but you will find  many of the same nutrients required for the healthiest skin.

NUTRIENTS

 for healthy hair, skin and nails.  I'll bet you can guess what some of them are!  Make a note of three nutrients you have heard of to help with hair, skin or nails and we will discuss these in class.  Have you tried any of them?  What has helped you?

"Vitamin deficiency affects skin health. The lack of vitamins in the body can cause skin disorders. For example, lack of vitamin C causes the symptoms of scurvy such as fragile skin and impaired wound healing. Vitamins, as skin antioxidant defense ingredients, are mostly taken from food, so the content of vitamins in the diet is closely related to skin antioxidant capacity and physiological functions1"

WRITE the answers found in the paragraph above:

• What is scurvy?
• What are the symptoms of scurvy?
• What prevents scurvy?
• Explain in your own words a nutrient that this paragraph mentions and why it might be important to healthy skin.

Have you seen someone who smoked for a long period of time?  What does their skin look like?  This article says that tobacco use consumes 

Micronutrients for Smoother Skin

"Roughness and scaling were improved by the supplementation with antioxidant micronutrients.2"

The placebo (comparison group that had no change applied to it) in this study showed no significant difference.

WRITE:

• List the nutrients used in this study.  
• How much of each was supplemented?

Controlling Oily Skin Naturally

Acne-prone skin looks inflamed, doesn't it?  There can be many factors that affect the way skin looks.  Some say that avoiding dairy and fried foods can help acne prone skin look better.  An interesting observation I made when a young waitress was that when people had extremely bad acne, they usually ordered a coke with pork.  (This is not an official study, just a personal observation - I'd be interested in hearing if you have observed any such connections!)

There are nutrients known to reduce inflammation that are also found to control the oils in the skin.  What is amazing and counter-intuitive is that some of these nutrients that control oils, are oils!

Here is a study that shows how Omega 3s benefit the skin3.

Remember the article from M1 on the eye? There was a nutrient for the eyes that is also shown to be important for skin health.  Do you remember what that was?

WRITE:

What got the attention of scientists in using omega 3s for inflammatory issues? 

An Anti-Nutrient that Causes Large Pores

Try this experiment.  For one week, eat no sugar or breads.  Notice how small your pores look.  After eating more sugar than usual notice whether or not your pores are bigger.  Try this experiment until you are convinced that your diet impacts the size of your pores and you may be pleasantly surprised by being able to have smaller pores when it matters the most to you!

Nutrients for Hair Growth

Protein is considered a material that the body uses to make new tissue.  Hair is a tissue that the body can use protein to make.  There is a specific type of protein to make hair - you may have heard of it... collagen!  

There is a b vitamin that tells your body to grow more hair.  Biotin is that b vitamin.  Yes, it can be made by intestinal gut flora, but it can also be supplemented.

REFERENCES:

1.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7146365/

2.) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16679825/

3.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6117694/