By Christine Cheng, R.Ph. and Fred Cheng, R.Ph.
What makes someone’s skin look beautiful? Even with the best make up techniques and products, healthy skin is the foundation for beautiful looking skin. Our every day practices and habits such as eating a varied diet that includes lots of different fruits and vegetables as well as sources of essential fats and collagen will all help to provide our bodies with the building blocks for healthy skin. Ensure adequate hydration, especially with plain water as this will literally help hydrate the skin. Wash your skin using a gentle soap even if you are not in the habit of wearing make-up. We encounter environmental toxins every day so removing them from our skin is important to allow it to function optimally. Wear sunscreen, even on cloudy days as UV radiation is present all year round. These habits are essential for good health no matter how old we are. However, as we age and our bodies’ processes naturally slow down and are less efficient, we can look towards supplements to help us in our pursuit of health.
When it comes to skin, you may have heard us talk about ESSENTIAL FATTY ACID supplements (e.g., flax seed oil, fish oil, algae oil) to help “moisturize” the skin from the inside out. Most people will be aware of using supplements like SILICON to help with enhancing the smoothness of the skin. Antioxidants such as vitamins A, C, and E are all essential for proper skin healing and health. COLLAGEN is a great supplement for reducing the look of wrinkles and increasing the smoothness of the skin. Although most collagen supplements will give some benefit, it is ideal to look for hydrolyzed collagen supplements to enhance their absorption and function. CANPREV, a Canadian owned supplement company has brought to market specific collagen products that are cleaved into the appropriate sizes to help different tissues in the body. Their COLLAGEN BEAUTY supplements provide collagen that has been cleaved into 2kilodalton (kDa; unit of measuring protein size) pieces as this has been found to be the most effective size for enhancing skin, hair, and nail health.
Ceramides improve the skin’s hydration by helping the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the skin) retain water. Another innovative product from CanPrev is a patented extract from wheat that provides ceramides and a compound called digalactosyl diglycerides (DGDG) that enhances the absorption and metabolism of ceramides. Aptly called BEAUTIFUL SKIN, this one-a-day supplement can help improve the skin’s elasticity, moisture, and smoothness with benefits being seen in as little as 15 days worth of use.
As the days get longer and warmer and we are spending more time outside, make sure to wear your sunscreen and cover up your skin if you do not want it to age prematurely. UV PROTECT, a patented combination of rosemary and grapefruit extract is a “nutricosmetic” formula designed to protect the skin from the sun. Not only is it a source of water- and fat-soluble antioxidants to fight free radicals generated by exposure to solar radiation, it can inhibit the tissue damage that occurs after UV irradiation, and reduce the damage to the DNA caused by UVB radiation. It is clinically proven to reduce wrinkle depth and increase skin elasticity.
For more information, register for our webinar coming up on May 13, 2021 to learn more about these supplements. If you want to learn more now, contact one of our pharmacists at Pharmasave in Cloverdale and Steveston Village to help you choose the right product for your needs.
Christine and Fred Cheng are a passionate, charismatic sister-brother pharmacist team at their unique, family-operated Pharmasave stores in Cloverdale and Steveston, B.C. They specialize in natural remedies and compounding for both human and veterinarian use. Find them on Instagram and Facebook! Everything mentioned in their article is available InStore.
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