Quick skin health for busy people

Our busy lifestyles sometimes leaves some self-care routines short-changed.  Since our skin is our largest organ and I care about my health, I need to take care of it just as much as eating healthy organic foods!

I have sensitive skin and used to have all kinds of eczema and breakouts as a teen, so I'm hesitant to use anything with too many ingredients. My days in college, people raved about witch hazel but it was too drying for my T-zone combination skin. Now, in Los Angeles with some of the desert weather, I need to be on top of cleaning and moisturizing my skin. And why not use a moisturizer with Vitamins C and E to protect my skin from cellular damage from the pollution and sun? I've been delighted to find this discounted kit (save 20%) that matches my healthy lifestyle that has aloe and other gentle natural ingredients for cleansing and toning plus my favorite vitamin anti-aging/antioxidant moisturizer! For busy people, it's a quick 3 steps of cleanse, tone, and moisturize.

A number of my fashionista friends talk about and take a supplement biotin for their skin health. However, with a little research, it's best taken in synergy with other vitamins and antioxidants for your best results for beauty from the inside out. I had an 70-year-old who had tried lots of different supplements for anti-aging, and she really loved this skin health formula! There's even a study about Pycnogenol that shows the impact for post-menopausal women -- which is exactly what my 70-year-old experienced, bringing down some of her puffy eye symptoms and more.

Antioxidants and injuries

When I hurt my ankle (really badly--the swelling was unbelievable), I had excellent attention from the physical therapists I work with. Beyond their treatments and icing, I knew I needed a strong anti-inflammatory program to calm down the inflammation surrounding the injury and my body's higher level of stress. My body needed more fuel and ingredients for the healing process. I didn't want to take any drugs that may have side effects, so I went the natural route of antioxidants and diligently took a therapeutic program of: OPC, Vitamin C, CoQ10, Omega-3, and Quercetin.

As you might know, the vitamin levels recommended as the RDA are not necessarily sufficient for optimal health. Rather, those levels are to set at rates to keep you from getting diseases like scurvy. Different wellness doctors recommend levels of vitamin C that would be tough to include in your food diet. Optimal health levels can be found in nutrition books like The Real Vitamin & Mineral Book (a lit review by well-respected nutrition and health writers Shari Lieberman, PhD & Nancy Bruning, MPH). I really like this book because it does a thorough literature review, so you're not getting one isolated study that happened to hit the news. I could eat a lot of my favorite fruits high in vitamin C, like kiwis and strawberries, but when dealing with an injury, I wouldn't be able to eat enough fruit to get the therapeutic dosages I was looking for.

For your body to use vitamins well there are 3 factors:
1) Input -- Does the food or supplement have the vitamins and levels you want?
2) Digestion/Absorption -- Does your stomach/gut break down the pills, vitamins or food well?
3) Usability -- Is the vitamin in a form that your body can use it well? Do you have a genetic pre-disposition that doesn't use the vitamin well? If so, do you need more or a different form of that vitamin or mineral?

I personally don't like taking pills (nor does my stomach because there are some fillers and binders in pills that need breaking down), so whenever I can get a more absorbable liquid formulation, it means my body is absorbing and using more (factors 2 and 3). And when it is isotonic-capable, I'm absorbing up to 94% of what the label says, instead of the up to 40% in pill form. A leading wellness doctor used to give her patients IV vitamin therapy, and now she rarely uses the IV when there is the less expensive and very powerful option of a patient taking her vitamins daily--vitamins that are absorbed at the highest capacity.

* OPC=oligomeric proanthocyanidins which is the family of antioxidants including resveratrol (red wine extract), bilberry extract (cousin of blueberry), pine bark extract, and grapeseed extract