What are the Most Important Nutrients for Healthy Skin?

Let me ask you a simple question. What are the most important nutrients for healthy skin? There is no single complete food for healthy skin. Like all of the cells of your body, the skin's cells need a variety of different vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, cofactors and enzymes.

The biggest problem that the epidermis faces (that's the outermost of the skin's layers) is this. It has no blood vessels. Nutrition must be supplied to it through a process called diffusion, where it is passed along from the deeper layers.

The process is pretty inefficient, but luckily, we can apply the nutrients for healthy skin directly, if we use the right nourishing creams. Unluckily, most of the lotions on the market do not provide that nourishment. So, we need to know what to shop for.

If you were trying to eat food for healthy skin, you would want it to contain the things that are needed to create one of the skin's cells or a collagen and elastin fiber. The components necessary are the amino acids serine, proline, glycine, alanine, potassium, vitamin C, vitamin A and coenzyme Q10.

There are some vitamin companies that promote collagen supplements for the purpose of improving the skin's appearance. Collagen is a protein. When you eat protein, the digestive system breaks it down in to its component amino acids. Collagen is considered an incomplete protein, because it does not contain all of the essential amino acids. Other protein sources are actually better. Let's take salmon, as an example.

Salmon is considered a "super-food" by health and fitness oriented individuals. Some respected dermatologists suggest it as a food for healthy skin. That's because its nutritional content is high. It is a complete protein and a good source of the vitamins A, D, B3, B12, B6 and the minerals phosphorus, potassium and magnesium. It is also the best known source of omega-3 fatty acids, which make up the skin's moisture content and improve its firmness.

While salmon contains many of the necessary nutrients for healthy skin, you can see that it does not contain all of them. It might be the closest thing to a complete food for healthy skin, but you would want to eat something along side it that is rich in vitamin C.

Coenzyme Q10 is one of the nutrients for healthy skin that can be difficult to get, through diet alone. Every cell of the body needs it and it is only present in trace amounts in the foods that we eat every day. So, it is an important ingredient for any skincare cream, but it must be properly formulated, so that the cells can use it.

Basically the bottom line ... eating food for healthy skin is a good idea, because it is good for the rest of your body, as well. But, if you really want to improve your appearance and your skin's health, look for creams that contain the necessary nutrients for healthy skin and use them every day. That's the best advice.

To learn more about vitamins for healthy skin, and other incredible natural substances for natural healthy skin care, visit my website today.

Laurel is a long time user and passionate advocate of natural skin care products. Visit her site now to discover cutting edge, anti-aging skin care products she recommends after extensive research: http://www.beautiful-skin-site.com.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com