Why is Vitamin C so important in health and beauty, and what are the best sources? : Let’s take more of an in-depth look at one of our best beauty friends, vitamin C, and ask ourselves the question of why vitamin C is so important in health and beauty and what are the best sources.
As a quick reminder, vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin and as such, we will lose it from our body more quickly through urination than fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin E. Furthermore, our body cannot generate vitamin C by itself because it lacks essential ingredients. Combined, these two factors help reveal why it is so important to maintain a diet with the recommended daily amounts of vitamin C or use a dietary supplement.
To begin, let’s focus on the role vitamin C plays in maintaining a beautiful skin appearance. There are two really important ways that vitamin C helps our skin. The first relates to its potent antioxidant properties that particularly help in preventing skin damage caused by those nasty reactive oxide species created by exposure to the harmful ultraviolet radiation produced by the sun. Studies suggest that this combative action of vitamin C is even more powerful when partnered with vitamin E. But this type of oxidative attack in not only generated by the sun. Inflammation, disease, smoking, alcohol consumption and many other lifestyle and health factors can lead to oxidative attack. Thus, vitamin C not only helps our appearance, but our general health as well.
The second important function vitamin C plays in skin beauty and health is related to its key role in collagen synthesis. To this end, it is probably not too surprising that vitamin C is found in high levels in our skin, in particular the outer (epidermis) layer. It gets there via transportation in the bloodstream with an assist from transport proteins that are specific to ascorbic acid. But as we age, these levels begin to decline naturally, and this effect is worsened with exposure to excessive sunlight and pollutants such as cigarette smoke and smog. Unfortunately, we cannot overcompensate with vitamin C intake because once the vitamin C level in our bloodstream becomes saturated, the skin concentration of vitamin C will no longer increase.
So, what happens then? Over the years, vitamin C (and other antioxidants such as vitamin E) do their best to fend off the effects of oxidative damage induced extrinsically by the sun and intrinsically by simply aging, but the fact is that oxidative damage to our skin and its proteins will accumulate. This damage results in changes to the skin structure and its unwanted side effects of wrinkling and sagging. However, vitamin C can once again come to your skin’s aid as it regulates the production of collagen, a scaffold protein that gives your skin its elasticity and smoothness. In fact, studies have shown that participants that had higher intakes of vitamin C from their diet had better skin appearance, decreased skin wrinkling and improved moisturization.
Many of the benefits of vitamin C for the skin also apply to the hair. For one thing, the scalp is essentially just more skin covered by hair, and a healthy scalp helps promote healthy hair. Furthermore, the antioxidant properties can help maintain follicle health and reduce hair thinning with age. But what about the effect of vitamin C on collagen synthesis? Hair consists mainly of an entirely different protein, keratin. Well, the answer is related to an amino acid ingredient – proline. Proline makes up about 33% of all the constituent amino acids in collagen. As collagen is broken down, it can release that proline for further biosynthesis of more collagen or other proteins, including the keratin in your hair which provides it with flexibility, durability and strength.
Finally, vitamin C has one other property that we have not mentioned yet. It helps with the uptake and metabolism of iron in our body. And this has a direct link to hair health as one type of hair loss known as telogen effluvium is known to be linked with iron deficiencies. This may be particularly important for women who are pregnant or on vegan or vegetarian diets that typically contain less iron.
Regarding your nails, vitamin C can help there again because of its role in collagen synthesis. Collagen supports nail growth and strength, and if you are not ingesting enough of it, your nails risk becoming more brittle and prone to breakage.
Alright, we have summarized all the different ways vitamin C can support the beauty of your hair, skin and nails and general health. But what are the best dietary sources? Some of them you probably already know, such as all the citrus fruits (oranges, grapefruit, kiwi, lemon) but other fruits such as strawberries, guava, black currants, cantaloupe and papaya are also loaded with vitamin C. Some vegetables are also very strong vitamin C providers, including bell peppers, tomatoes, chili peppers, snow peas, broccoli and cauliflower. Some leafy greens are also rich vitamin C sources, such as parsley (which is also a good source of iron, so a win-win situation), collard greens, and Swiss chard. Amongst all these choices, there is probably something for everyone, but as one final note, if you do decide to use a supplement, look for one containing L-ascorbic acid, as it is the most effective and bioactive form of vitamin C and also the most studied.
Take away message
Vitamin C is very important in health and beauty. We found out that vitamin C has two great benefits, that of an antioxidant to help fight off the effects of oxidative attack on our body and skin (especially when used in combination with vitamin E), but also as a driver of collagen production, which can help us retain our youthful skin appearance and help fend off the inevitable effect of natural aging on our skin. These same attributes also support maintaining strong hair and nails and can help reduce hair thinning with age through the upkeep of hair follicle health. After learning all of that, we found out that there is an abundance of excellent sources of dietary vitamin C in many different types of fruits and vegetables, so maintaining proper levels should not mean sacrificing taste at any meal!
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Why is Vitamin C so important in health and beauty, and what are the best sources?
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