Daily dose of vitamin C that REALLY plumps skin

HOW YOU CAN LOOK YOUNGER

STEPPINg back from skincare and ‘ tweakments’ for a minute, there’s a good case to be made for the ‘beauty from the inside out’ argument.

What you eat certainly affects the way your skin looks: consuming more vegetables, colourful berries, lean protein and healthy fats, while cutting back on sugar, refined carbohydrates and alcohol, really will benefit your skin no end.

But what about supplements? Here are the ones I have found to be most helpful and the reasons why . . .

VITAMIN C MIRACLE

lOTS of us scoff vitamin C supplements to ward off coughs and colds, but new studies show it has no special powers in this area and that, because our bodies can’t store it, if we ingest large amounts, we’ll simply excrete it.

I had all but given up on vitamin C as a supplement until recently, when I heard that a special sort, called Altrient C, had just completed medical-grade clinical trials. These showed that taking three 1,000mg doses a day for three months could achieve impressive improvements in skin elasticity and hydration, as well as boosting collagen levels in the skin.

Would I like to be the first writer to try it out, the company asked? You bet. So I relinquished all the ‘active’ skincare I usually use (the retinoids, glycolic acid and vitamin C serums), stopped having any treatments and gave up taking collagen supplements, which I also use for the same reason (and yes, they work, too, but more on those later).

What’s different about Altrient C is that the active part, sodium ascorbate, is encapsulated in tiny fatty particles called liposomes, which make a great delivery system.

The liposomes enable the vitamin C to get through the stomach without being broken up by acids and into the gut, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream.

The advantage of this is that your body gets the benefit of around 98 per cent of each dose of vitamin C, whereas with typical High Street supplements of the stuff, you can absorb as little as 10 to 15 per cent. Each individual dose comes in a sachet that you squeeze into water and gulp down.

I didn’t think Altrient C would make a difference. But it worked. My hydration levels were picking up before the end of the first month and, after three months, I had notched up 22.8 per cent more collagen, a 30 per cent rise in hydration and a 64.3 per cent improvement in skin elasticity.

Altrient C isn’t cheap (£35.99 for 30 sachets, abundanceand

health.co.uk), but I’ve started buying it in bulk. I’m now on two sachets a day.

OMEGA-3 MAGIC

ONE thing that will contribute to better skin texture is to cram your diet with omega-3 essential fatty acids.

Omega-3s are vital for skin health, as they’re a crucial part of the lipid (fatty) membrane that surrounds every cell in the body. When skin cell membranes are in good shape, they hold on to moisture more effectively and keep skin softer.

The quickest way to pack in omega-3s is by eating oily fish ( such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, fresh tuna). As this fish tends to contain low levels of pollutants such as mercury, which can build up in the body, two portions a week is usually the maximum recommended.

FULVIC ACID

NO, I hadn’t heard of this stuff either until recently but, taken as a liquid supplement, it offers 65-plus essential macro and trace minerals to the body to encourage optimum health.

As a knock- on effect, says Shabir Daya, a pharmacist at Victoria Health, this supplement acts as a ‘ super- conductor’, allowing the body’s cells to become more receptive to the nutrients we eat. The result is the cells have more energy, can produce up to 30 per cent more collagen and can neutralise the damaging free radical molecules that accelerate ageing.

COLLAGEN DRINKS

COllAgEN drinks and powders are a relatively new arrival on the beauty scene, so it’s difficult to know whether or not they will work.

The brands that contain enough of the right sort of collagen include Absolute Collagen, Pure gold Collagen, Pink Cloud Beauty, Rejuvenated Collagen Shots, Skinade and Totally Derma. These can make a measurable difference to your skin and several brands have conducted clinical trials that demonstrate the improvements their products can make.

I will happily consume any of the above. But they’re not cheap and, depending on which you choose, can add up to £100 a month to your skincare bill.

If that’s within your budget, they are worth considering in order to firm up your beautyfrom-the-inside-out strategy.