Did you know that vitamin C is necessary for collagen formation? And since PCOS ages skin as radically as it ages the rest of your organs, you need this vitamin more than ever?
If you've gone on a drastic low-carbohydrate diet, you may be depriving yourself of many great vitamin C sources, as they tend to come from fruits:
Whenever I make a salad, I throw in some kind of fruit and some kind of seed/nut. Turns out, if I do that and add the vinaigrette with the 2 parts vinegar/1 part oil ratio, it helps to moderate the influence of the sugar in the fruit. And some of the fruits, strawberries, for example, help to keep blood sugar from spiking as well.
Vegetables also have vitamin C:
broccoli bell peppers kale cauliflower mustard and turnip greens brussels sprouts chard, cabbage spinach snow peas tomatoes zucchini asparagus celery lettuce fennel peppermint parsley
As long as you're eating fruits and vegetables, preferably in their whole form, on a regular basis, it's not hard at all to get enough vitamin C. If you're looking for some ideas, PCOS Diva has put together a week's worth of menus focusing on vitamin C.
Yesterday I introduced you to Nightly Beauty by Beauty Foods, a nutricosmetic primarily designed for improving skin health and appearance. I shared my own experience with this product while investigating its potential for PCOS. Hopefully my photos got your attention enough to want to read more! Today I'd like to share some of the science behind my thoughts.
Women with PCOS are struggling with inflammation. It hits everywhere, not just the ovaries. It causes diabetes, heart disease, depression. That much you know. It also ages skin more quickly than it should be aging. So other body tissues break down and aren't readily replaced. Your most important strategy, of course, is to reduce the inflammatory process with the kinds of choices we encourage here on this blog.
Nightly Beauty enhances that process with a few additional ingredients, BioCollagen and hyaluronic acid that aren't easy to correct with simple dietary changes.
Collagen
Collagen is one of the major components of skin. It's only been recently that it's been confirmed through research that supplementing the diet with collagen actually helps skin collagen. Right as we were preparing to post these blog entries, BioCell Technology, maker of the collagen in Nightly Beauty, distributed a press release announcing that the first human study of their collagen supplement confirmed that it actually does increase collagen levels in skin (types I and III). In their words,"results of the study showed that a majority of the participants experienced a remarkable improvement in skin texture, together with hydration, reduced scaling, and improved blood microcirculation".
Of course, since I've had the opportunity to experience this myself as I reported yesterday, I love this! However, this is just the wonderful side effect. There's something even more important for PCOS. Another inflammatory disorder many of you struggle with is arthritis. And when your joints hurt, you can't exercise. BioCell Collagen supplementation has also been proven to increase collagen type II, which is the type of collagen found in joints. They report that joint discomfort and stiffness in research subjects reduced by as much as 40% in 8 weeks.
Your faces are precious, but your quality of life matters more to me. If you can move, you can help your PCOS. If you can help your PCOS, you're more likely to feel better about yourself. This is the main reason I picked up the phone and called Jacque in the first place, I saw its potential for all of you writing and telling me that your joints hurt and no one was connecting it to your primary problem — inflammation.
Hyaluronic Acid
Hyaluronic acid, or HA, is known in the beauty world as the plumper. Many women take HA supplements to plump their lips. It also pulls water into skin, helping to plump and hydrate.
But did you know, HA is also a major component of the gelatinous fluid in your eyes? It's what helps to hold fluid in the eyeball. I didn't, until I started researching Nightly Beauty. Several months prior, I'd noticed my eyes were feeling dry, despite my faithful use of fish oils and upping my fluid intake. It didn't hit me until I started reading about HA and eyes that not long after I started taking this product my dry eyes started improving. Considerably. So I started reading more. Women with PCOS actually do experience more dry eye syndrome than women who don't.
There is considerable research into ways to deliver more hyaluronic acid to eyes, including eye drops and even controlled-release contact lenses. I'm having trouble finding any research either supporting or negating hyaluronic acid supplementation as a potential route of administration…but I'm not surprised. Nutrition is often an afterthought in research problem solving.
This product has not been researched specifically for dry eyes or for PCOS, but for women who are interested in trying something that has documented benefit for other PCOS-related symptoms and who also have dry eyes, it couldn't hurt to try it. I must state that Beauty Foods is NOT making health claims about this product. I am, in this blog post, reporting my personal experience and connecting research relevant to the product for my specific intended audience, independently of them.
If you do choose to try it, and you experience benefits, please let me know. I'd like to keep a running total of results and perhaps…include it as something we research at our new institute.
If you'd like to try Nightly Beauty for yourself, it's on sale this week at http://www.jpselects.com/. It's also available at http://www.beautyfoods.com/.
Let us know what you think!
Collagen-containing nutricosmetic shown to combat aging. http://www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com/ http://www.cosmeticsdesign-europe.com/Formulation-Science/Collagen-containing-nutricosmetic-shown-to-combat-aging
Bonini S, Mantelli F, Moretti C, Lambiase A, Bonini S, Micera A. Itchy-dry eye associated with polycystic ovary syndrome. Am J Ophthalmol. 2007 May;143(5):763-771. Epub 2007 Mar 23.
Coksuer H, Ozcura F, Oghan F, Haliloglu B, Karatas S. Effects of hyperandrogenism on tear function and tear drainage in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome. J Reprod Med. 2011 Jan-Feb;56(1-2):65-70.
Ali M, Byrne ME. Controlled release of high molecular weight hyaluronic Acid from molecularly imprinted hydrogel contact lenses. Pharm Res. 2009 Mar;26(3):714-26. Epub 2009 Jan 21.
Liu L, Tiffany J, Dang Z, Dart JK, Watson SL, Daniels JT, Geerling G. Nourish and nurture: development of a nutrient ocular lubricant. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2009 Jun;50(6):2932-9. Epub 2008 Dec 13.
Back at Expo West in March, we learned a new word,"nutricosmetic", which means a functional food used for the purpose of improving appearance. This particular nutricosmetic, Nightly Beauty, caught my eye, because of how important good sleep is for insulin function, weight, mood, and fertility. This product is a flavored powder, designed to be mixed with milk and taken just before bed, to help enhance beauty, as CEO Jacque Gibson says, from the inside out.
This philosophy is woven throughout the entire company. The box in which this product is packaged, has a mirror inscribed with"You're Beautiful". Even the voice mail when you call Beauty Foods, begins with,"Well…Hello, Beautiful!" It's the perfect message for all of you coming to this blog.
For some reason the embed code on Jacque's promotional video is not working, so I can only link, but I strongly encourage you to watch it. You'll see her genuine desire to encourage inner beauty to shine through.
http://vimeo.com/25624555
Nightly Beauty by Beauty Foods is getting a lot of attention. It was named"best nutricosmetic" at Natural Products West. It was selected by JP Selects, created by the co-founder of Paul Mitchell, to be offered as one of their brands. And it will be included in this year's Emmy SWAG bags!
I'll get to the science behind the product in tomorrow's blog post. Today I just want to introduce the product and point you toward links with more information. And show you what it did to my skin in the 30 days I tested it.
My forehead before My forehead after
My eyes before My eyes after
My cheeks before My cheeks after
My chin before My chin after
Side view of my face before
Side view of my face after This product caught my eye because of its ingredients. And it caught my attention, because after a month of using it, three different people who didn't know I was in the middle of this experiment spontaneously asked what I was doing to make my skin look so healthy! I realize that's not very scientific, but since I'm not a person who's overly focused on her appearance, that is quite a reaction to get from close friends.
While Jacque designed this product to primarily be for skin, it has a lot of pertinence for women dealing with the effects of chronic inflammation…namely…YOU. I'm going to go into the science of Nightly Beauty and why it has so much relevance to PCOS tomorrow…but for now, if you want to learn more, check out the radio interview Jacque did for inCYST awhile back.
Tomorrow: the potential this product holds for women with PCOS.
And that is because I'm a strawberry nut. It's my absolute favorite fruit. I learned while researching this blog post that the average American eats 156 lbs. of added sugar a year…and only 8 lbs. of strawberries in the same time period.
Of course, the fact that you all are not eating enough strawberries means there's more for ME! Ha!
Seriously, though, this fruit is a wonderfully easy food to add to any diet. Put them in your cereal. In a smoothie. On waffles or pancakes. On top of ricotta cheese, sprinkled with almonds, on a Bran Crispbread. On a salad. Freeze them to eat like candy on a hot summer night. (That last one is my favorite.)
Strawberries are high in vitamin C, which is an important antioxidant. It's also important for the production of collagen, which keeps your skin looking young. As far as antioxidants go, it's the third best source of antioxidants when compared to the same serving size of other fruits.
And…did you know…even though they contain sugar, strawberries can also help reduce blood sugar spikes caused by other foods? I wouldn't recommend eating strawberries to counter a carbohydrate binge, but you certainly may want to consider including more strawberries in your overall diet as a way to make it easier for your body to handle carbohydrates. If you're enjoying the sweetness of the berries, you are likely going to want to eat less sugary food anyway, reducing your insulin load even more.
For those of you with high cholesterol, strawberries have also been shown to decrease markers of atherosclerotic disease. The benefits these tasty fruits provide far outweigh the sugar content many of you are concerned about.
One last thing, a recent study reported that organic strawberries are actually higher in antioxidants. So it may be worth it to spend a little extra, avoid the pesticides, and get the extra metabolic boost. If you don't have access to a farmer's market, look for the Driscoll's brand in your grocery store.
Basu A, Fu DX, Wilkinson M, Simmons B, Wu M, Betts NM, Du M, Lyons TJ. Berries modify the postprandial plasma glucose response to sucrose in healthy subjects. Br J Nutr. 2010 Apr;103(8):1094-7. Epub 2009 Nov 24.
Törrönen R, Sarkkinen E, Tapola N, Hautaniemi E, Kilpi K, Niskanen L. Strawberries decrease atherosclerotic markers in subjects with metabolic syndrome. Nutr Res. 2010 Jul;30(7):462-9.
I don't have the skin issues common to PCOS, but I have lived most of my life in Arizona, much of it before we were educated about the importance of sunscreen. Being blue-eyed and fair-skinned, I'm more than a little paranoid about what that is eventually going to mean with regards to the condition of my skin.
One night I started researching what common natural ingredients I could use to help my skin be as healthy as I could be. My three favorites so far:
1. Fish oil. I know, you're sick of hearing about it! But healthy skin is dependent on healthy fats in the diet. Fish oil is great for skin health…I've noticed in the years since I've been taking it, some prominent scarring I got from a second degree sunburn on a Costa Rican vacation, has lessened.
2. Coconut oil. Coconut oil is a mild exfoliant, and it also encourages collagen growth. If you look at many of your skin care products they already contain coconut oil. Why not go to the source? I just use the virgin coconut oil most people buy for cooking. I've noticed that it has started to fade some of my sun spots in the 4 months I've been using it…here are before and after pics.
3. Camellia oil. This is also known as green tea seed oil, and that is exactly what it is. It is especially high in EGCG, the antioxidant green tea is famous for, and EGCG helps to prevent collagen breakdown. I will be writing more about this oil in a future blog post. I was provided a bottle of this oil to experiment with in both cooking and skin care. I figured with one item promoting collagen production and the other preventing its breakdown, I had a nice combination.
I notice that in the month that I've been using camellia oil, the wrinkles I've accumulated from years of laughing and assertively expressing myself (Ha! If you know me you're thinking that due to my personality I should look like a California raisin!) It's kind of fun to look in the mirror in the morning and see some of the new changes. It also seems to stimulate blood flow (which EGCG does in other parts of the body as well), as I get a nice rosy hue to my skin almost immediately on using it. These are before and after shots after just two weeks of using Camellia oil twice a day on my skin.
Speaking of coconut oil, my friend Denise recently rescued a Sharpei mix from the local animal shelter. Phillip Bruno was scheduled to be euthanized because his mange was so horribly out of control. After learning that coconut oil can be useful for mange as well, as it is a nontoxic oil that is absorbed by the skin and helps to suffocate the responsible mites that can make this disease very tough to eradicate, she decided to try coconut oil on PB as well. Here are pictures of him on his first day being rescued and a week after being treated with various medications and coconut oil. On day one his skin was so scabbed over he couldn't even open his eyes, now he's making eyes at the camera! (I told Denise if we're not careful it may work so well it will de-Sharpei him!)
By the way, PB is so popular he has his own Facebook fan page where you can watch his progress. He's a real charmer! If you're interested in camellia oil, here is the link where you can find it online. I'll post updates of both myself and PB as we have them!
