Want to have your skin looking healthy, golden and glowing? You don’t have to spend hours in the sun, risk your health in tanning beds or spend a fortune on special creams and cleansers to get a healthy body blow.
Instead, the answer to glowing skin is a lot easier, and more natural – eat lots of fruits and veggies – this according to research set to appear in the December 2009 International Journal of Primatology.
It’s a rather unexpected beauty tip that comes to us thanks to a study that took place at the University of St. Andrews.
Participants, 54 white men and women, used specialized computer software to adjust the skin color of the faces of images for both men and women. The goal was to make the complexions look as healthy as possible. The participants chose to enhance the rosiness, yellowness and brightness of the skin tone.
“Most previous work on faces has focused on the shape of the face or the texture of the skin, but one of the most variable characteristics of the face is skin colour,” said study leader Dr. Ian Stephen who is now a member of the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol.
Earlier work found that those who have more blood, and therefore more oxygen in their skin looked healthier – this latest work sought to find out what other colors might affect our perceptions of good health and good looks.
Rather than getting a suntan, the team suggests a far safer, and still 100% natural way to get that glowing, healthy look – eating lots of those good-for-you fruits and veggies.
Melanin, the natural pigment in skin that causes it tan when we’re out in the sun, also causes it to darken and carry more yellow tones. The preference of the participants for this coloring may be explained by carotenoid pigments, a natural part of many of the fruit and veggies we eat.
These compounds are also responsible for brightly colored birds and fish, helping them to attract mates. The researchers believe that similar biological mechanisms might be at work in the human body as well.
Beyond making skin look healthier, these natural plant pigments are known to be powerful antioxidants that absorb dangerous compounds produced as the body combats disease and stress.
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A Golden Glow Is Healthiest Continued…
They also play a role in boosting our immune and reproductive systems and might even help prevent cancer.
A rosy complexion is known to be a sign of a strong heart, healthy lungs. It’s well known that those who smoke or have diabetes do have fewer blood vessels in their skin, and this tends to make their complexions less rosy and less healthy looking.
“This discovery is very exciting and has given us a promising lead into cues to health,” points out Professor David Perrett, head of the Perception Lab at St Andrews University, where the study was conducted. “What we eat and not just how much we eat appears to be important for a healthy appearance. The only natural way in which we can make our skin lighter and more yellow is to eat a more healthy diet high in fruit and vegetables.”
So if you’re after that healthy body “glow”, and golden skin, eating lots of fruits and veggies is a better and safer way to get it. Certainly safer than tanning under the sun or by using a tanning bed.
Daily Health Bulletin
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