People nowadays are spending a tonne money on skin creams and lotions in hopes of getting healthy skin but what they fail to realize is that what you put on your skin doesn’t really do much for the health of your skin and healthy skin starts from inside, with your digestive system.
Although the skin creams and lotions available on the market, may be helpful in the short term, they are useless in the long term because they are not getting to the root cause! What’s worse is that these creams are loaded with toxins. And keep in mind what you put on your skin enters your body the same way as eating. So ask yourself if you would eat what you are putting onto your skin?
To have healthy skin we must take good care of our gut which is also known as the digestive system. Our skin is a reflection of what is going on in our gut. The gut is everything in terms of health especially when it comes to healthy skin.
What is the gut?
The gut, or digestive system whatever you want to call it, is composed of the stomach, the small intestines, and the large intestines. Its essentially a large tube that runs inside us. It is responsible for digestion and absorption of food obviously but what a lot of people don’t know is that Two—thirds of our immune system lays within the walls of our gut. This is how a lot of allergy issues often begin in the gut.
Another interesting thing about the gut is that most of the body’s neurotransmitters are made in the gut. Neurotransmitters are things like serotonin, dopamine, which play an incredibly important role in mental health. This is a fascinating area of growing research because when it came to mental health we used to think brain, but now the research is showing that our gut is actually producing the majority of our neurotransmitters, and this why the gut is referred to the second brain.
The Microbiome
Now inside the gut we have something called the microbiome, which is a collection of billions of bacteria living inside our gut. In fact, we have more bacterial DNA in our gut than we have human DNA in our body, crazy right? Depending on the species of the bacteria, they can be good, bad, or neutral.
A healthy person will have an optimal level of good bacteria to combat unhealthy bacteria in the digestive tract. On the other hand, we can have dysbiosis, or an imbalance where there are fewer good guys and more bad guys. When there is dysbiosis, the digestive and immune systems cannot function optimally, and symptoms including allergies, eczema, psoriasis, and acne can result.
This is why it is so important for us to educate ourselves on what we can do to optimize the health of our microbiome. The most important thing for a healthy microbiome is food! Avoid the crappy food and eat lots of plant food.
What about probiotics? Do they Help? Sure probiotics, or good bacteria as the name says, are great for quickly re-populating the gut with healthy bacteria but it is important to keep in mind that if we don’t feed this bacteria with the right food and give them a chance to colonize, they will simply pass through our gut, much like tourists.
Probiotics rich foods include: miso, sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented vegetables, kombucha
Those were foods high in probiotics, now the food for the probiotics, are called prebiotics, and prebiotics can be found in: asparagus, bananas, eggplant, garlic, honey, onions, peas, whole grains, and legumes like beans, chickpeas, lentils. The key with the probiotic and prebiotic foods is diversity, so we want to make sure we are eating a variety of these foods.
Leaky Gut
Now that we covered how to optimize the microbiome inside the gut we can move onto the gut lining. A poor diet, like the standard American diet, and exposure to an infection or chronic stress can actually result in holes in the intestinal lining, a concept commonly referred to as leaky gut or more correctly intestinal permeability. Once these holes are made, your gut literally leaks undigested food particles, bacteria, and toxins into your blood. Leaky gut sets the stage for a number of health issues, especially skin problems. The skin is the body’s largest elimination organ so it’s not surprising that it comes under assault when toxins and these undigested food particles enter the bloodstream. A skin rash, eczema, and acne are all signs that the body is trying to rid of these toxins.
What to do:
So what do we do? The first step is removing things that can be triggering the body’s immune system.
Starting with food we want to eliminate the inflammatory foods like sugar, gluten, dairy, soy for at least 3 weeks to give our immune system a chance to calm down.
As we are removing the inflammatory foods we need to support the gut with the nutrients it needs to heal. We want to seal that permeability, the leaky gut that we were discussing earlier and prevent the undigested particles from entering our circulation.
Nutrients great for healing the gut include glutamine, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, EFAS (play an important role in the structure and appearance of skin), zinc, and most importantly lots of plant food!
As we are removing the inflammatory foods and healing the gut we want to make sure things are moving along in the gut and we are effectively eliminating by having regular bowel movements.
Having regular bowel movements is crucial for detoxing and so important if you want to have healthy skin. If we are not moving our bowels and clearing the toxins, they will ultimately be pushed out through skin. You want to make sure you are having 1-2 BMs daily and not missing days. If you are not, increase your fiber intake to 50 grams each day. Foods that are good sources of fiber include beans, lentils, fruits like pear, berries, apples, oatmeal, nuts and seeds.
Do you see a common theme with the dietary tips I have been providing?
The foods high in fiber and the foods that are good sources probiotics and prebiotics? Its all whole foods, foods made by nature or God! No ingredient lists. This is a great rule of thumb to follow and one I always remind my clients. When decided what foods are healthy and which are not, as yourself, was this food made by nature or God? Or was it made by man? If its made by man its likely not good.
What about water?
Water is not only important for working with fiber to get the bowels moving, but its important for keeping the skin hydrated. Majority of people don’t drink enough water and a sign of that is dry skin and constipation. Aim for 10 cups of water each day and use your urine to assess your hydration status. Your urine will be pale yellow in color if the body is well hydrated.
Next you want to make sure you are eating enough healthy protein and fat. Protein and fat are two nutrients needed for strong hair follicles. Be sure to eat lots of healthy fats from sources including: avocado, nuts, seeds, clean lean meats, fish, healthy oils. Proteins you would get mostly through grass fed organic meats, legumes, wild caught fish, nuts and seeds.
To summarize, in order to get healthy looking skin and maintain it in the long run we have get to the root of it all, that is the health of the gut! I hope by now you are convinced that our skin is a reflection of our gut health.
To get healthy looking skin we have to work on optimizing our microbiome, the bacterial balance in our gut, addressing leaky gut by healing lining of the gut lining, and make sure we are effectively eliminating toxins by having regular bowels. These things can all be accomplished with a food first approach by removing the crappy inflammatory foods and instead eating a diet high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. These foods are not only a great source of fiber, but are a great source of prebiotics, which will shift our microbiome away from a state of dysbiosis towards a healthy balances state where our gut has a chance to heal. Gut healings supplements including vitamin A, D, omega 3 fish oils, zinc, glutamine are all helpful in supporting the body’s healing capacity.
The steps outlined here will not only help with the health of your skin, but with health overall. Once you learn to treat your insides, your gut like an inner garden by making more informed decisions on a day to day you begin to transform your skin and overall health.
So what have you tried to get healthy skin? What has and hasn’t work for you in the past? Share your comments below. I want to thank you for watching my video and if you haven’t already subscribed go ahead and do so, so you can be informed about my future videos.
Keys to healthy skin:
Summary
- Avoid sugar, dairy, gluten, and soy
- Eat foods high in probiotics: miso, sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented vegetables, kombucha
- Eat foods high in prebiotics: asparagus, bananas, eggplant, garlic, honey, onions, peas, whole grains, and legumes like beans, chickpeas, lentils
- Supplement with vitamin A, D, omega-3s, zinc, and glutamine
- Drink 10 cups of filtered water each day
- Aim for 50 grams of fiber each day