Anti aging is the most talked about subject in the beauty circles and it is not surprising to know that most people are aware of the ‘good foods’, which help in slowing down the process. However, being aware is not enough. You have to actually incorporate the ‘good food habits’ in your diet to make the benefits visible. The first signs of aging are visible when the skin starts to show fine lines, wrinkles or spots. There are no particular anti aging foods to fight off the demon of aging, but only the correct incorporation and balance of certain foods in one’s daily routine can help delay it a little. While it is impossible to completely stop the aging process, it is certainly possible to slow down the process, so that you have a firm, supple and clear skin for long. Here is a brief explanation of anti aging foods good for the skin:Water: The most essential of all the elements – water – is something without which one cannot live. In addition to being a vital part of one’s existence, water tops the list of anti aging foods. Water is also a food good for the skin as it hydrates it, flushes the “free radicals” responsible for the wrinkles and spots out of the body. While the right quantity of water differs with each person, the ideal quantity is at least eight glasses a day.Berries: The aging process is a result of poor eating habits which slowly damage the internal system causing the release of toxins or free radicals in the body. Therefore, berries are ideal to fight these free radicals as they are a rich source of antioxidants. All fresh berries are excellent anti aging foods that slow the process of aging.Nuts: Essential Omega 3 fatty acids can be found in nuts in high quantities. Therefore, nuts like peanuts, Brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans and almonds are included in the food good for the skin. The anti-inflammatory Omega-3 fatty acids in nuts help keep the skin free of blotchiness and irritation.Avocadoes: This is an excellent food good for the skin. The presence of essential oils, sterolins and vitamins like A, B, B3, D and E make this a great anti aging food. Sterolins are known to nurture the skin and repair sun-damaged skin. Avocadoes increase collagen and moisturize the skin making it firm and supple.Besides the above-mentioned anti aging foods that are good for the skin, there are certain other foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, green tea and yogurt that contribute towards the slowing down of the aging process. However, while we concentrate on foods good for the skin, it is equally important to be aware of foods that are to be avoided. These include white foods like white bread, white flour, high sugar and high starch foods. Processed foods are a complete ‘no’ if you wish to have a great skin. However, if you cannot avoid these foods completely, at least, cut down on their consumption.Therefore, what we gather here is that it is the right selection of food that helps slow the aging process while also keeping the skin healthy and free of blemishes.

The anti-aging skin care field has boomed, with hundreds of new products being introduced to the market on what feels like almost on a daily basis. This has resulted in what we may call “skin care overload.” People have become overwhelmed and confused by the countless number of ingredients we are told are necessary for anti-aging. It has become impossible to access and apply even a fraction of these ingredients due to the cost and time involved. We feel compelled to buy multiple products every month and layer them on in order to do the most for our skin. But, as we fill our medicine cabinets with creams and serums, we are faced with the daily questions of which shall we use, which are safe and which actually work?It has been long overdue that the various categories of anti-aging and the anti-aging ingredients themselves be ordered and categorized so that a comprehensive approach to anti-aging may be put into place. Firstly, there are many features to skin aging and people will show one or more features over time, but may differ in the features of skin aging that plague them. For example, some people develop sagging or laxity to the skin due to genetic factors, but may have little or no sun damage. Others may be covered with sun spots but have no sagging or wrinkling. The following is a validated classification scheme which allows for each clinical feature of skin aging to be assessed separately on a 4-point grading scale (mild, moderate, advanced, severe):Classification of Skin Aging:
Laxity (Sagging)
Wrinkles
Redness
Brown discolorations
Solar elastosis (Yellowing)
Irregular texture
Abnormal growths (keratoses).1This classification scheme of skin aging includes a severity scale as mentioned above (0=None, 1=Mild, 2=Moderate, 3=Advanced, and 4=Severe) which allows researchers or users to rank each individual person’s skin aging according to feature and severity. This scale was shown to be very useful in testing anti-aging treatments and has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.1 Older scales tended to lump different features together into broad categories, which became less useful as treatments became more specific in targeting various facets of skin aging; for example as anti-pigment or anti-redness or anti-wrinkle. With this current anti-aging scale, our anti-aging products may be quantitatively tested to determine which individual categories of skin aging they treat and how effective they are in each category. This also allows us to hone our anti-aging regimen to our needs and to compile or group the ingredients in each category that are most effective so as to cover all categories of anti-aging in a logical manner.The next challenge was to classify the plethora of anti-aging ingredients on the market based on the features of skin aging that they targeted or treated. I then created a classification scheme of the categories of anti-aging targeted by the ingredients that have emerged over the past decade:
Anti-Wrinkle – DNA Defense - Barrier Fortification
Anti-Redness - Cellular Restore - Emollient/Moisturizer
Anti-Brown Discoloration – Damage Reversal – Pro-Skin Thickness
Anti-Oxidants - Aging Repair – Re-TexturizeWith this classification scheme, we can appreciate why people have become so overwhelmed and why they have accumulated shopping bags full of skin creams in order to meet their needs! Nevertheless, as anti-aging ingredients have emerged targeting each of these categories, ideally one would want to incorporate the best ingredients of each category in a single daily regimen to optimally treat skin aging.Each individual may differ in which category of anti-aging they need most, yet in order to prevent and reverse all the signs of skin aging, it is still optimal for all categories to be covered by an anti-aging regimen. It is important to familiarize yourself with which ingredients fall in each category, so that you can incorporate several of each group into your skin regimen, or look for a product that covers the various categories of anti-aging in a logical way. Examples of key active ingredients shown to yield resulst in each category of anti-aging include: peptides for anti-wrinkles, plant-derived polyphenols and bisabolol for anti-redness, amino acids for anti-brown discolorations, vitamins C, E and ferulic acid for anti-oxidant, DNA repair molecules such as acetyl tyrosine and proline for DNA defense, resveratrol for cellular restore, bark extract or phoretin for damage reversal, Helianthus annuus and Ilex paraguensis extracts for aging repair, dimethicone for barrier repair, glycerin and soy lecithin for emollients, hyaluronic acid for boosting skin thickness, and mushroom extracts and sodium lactate for smoothening abnormal texture.In sum, the field of anti-aging now has validated classification systems for the various categories of skin aging and for the plethora of anti-aging ingredients so that we can assess and determine which anti-aging actives we want in our medicine cabinet and to make certain that we cover the various categories of anti-aging in our daily regimen. With this scientific basis, we may now intelligently assess anti-aging products for their ability to comprehensively cover all the various categories of skin aging and include the various categories of anti-aging ingredients available. Finally, these comprehensive, validated classification and grading scales provide a framework for solving the anti-aging conundrum with a system for categorizing skin aging and classifying anti-aging actives to make sure you cover all your skin’s anti-aging needs.(C) NY Derm LLC, 2010.1) Alexiades-Armenakas, M, et al. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 2008 May;58(5):719-37; quiz 738-40.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there about sports nutrition and whether or not it’s appropriate for people who aren’t athletes. This is a somewhat understandable fear, as the media at large often likes to sensationalize the diets or supplement regimens of famous athletes. Adding in the media’s fascination with aggrandizing sports figures and elevating them onto pedestal and it’s easy to feel like the rules that apply to them don’t apply to you whether dietary or otherwise. The fact of the matter is, there is a lot that most people can learn from sports nutrition health, and they can gain a lot of benefits from incorporating the dietary insights athletes have learn for their own food consumption.The ironic thing about this public fear is the fact that most dietary changes over the least hundred years have started out in what it now known as optimum sports nutrition. If you look at the general and fairly predictable pattern for dietary changes and trends, you’ll notice that they tend to start with elite athletes and then trickle their way down to the rest of us. In fact, this is true for certain medical treatments in addition to diet.If you look at the trends closely, you’ll even see that dietary changes tend to start with the most EXTREME athletes out there professional bodybuilders. This is due to two simple facts. First, bodybuilders regularly experiment with massive body modulation and re-composition in order to compete in their sport. Secondly, bodybuilders tend to be the ones most willing to try absolutely anything. It’s true that most people don’t want to look like a pro bodybuilder or to go nearly as far as they go in their experiments, but those experiments are precisely the reason why meal replacements, protein shakes, multivitamins, weight training, and lower carbohydrate diets and many more breakthroughs have all entered the mainstream fitness world.In many ways, we are all eating the way we are because of insights found in the world of sports nutrition even if we’re not conscious about it.So now that I’ve hopefully dispelled some of the fear and unnecessary distance that might keep you from embracing sports nutrition as a great way to lose weight and build muscle as an amateur, what benefits can you expect from consciously incorporating these dietary protocols into your life?For starters, you are likely to drastically reduce the number of times that you get sick. Professional athletes can’t afford to get sick, and as such they have devised nutritional programs that tend to promote vibrant good health. Professional athletes are also unable to take too much time lying around sore and beaten up from their training, so you can expect to recover faster from your workouts.If you follow a solid sports nutrition health plan than you are likely to reach your fitness and performance goals much quicker than if you followed a standard American diet or a slightly healthier variation on it. There’s no reason to spend two months trying to lose five pounds when you go do it in two weeks with the right nutritional program.Overall, optimum sports nutrition is designed to allow the human body to function at its best. That’s something that everyone can benefit from- whether you’re a computer programmer who likes to row on the side, a new mother looking to lose your baby fat quickly, or just an average Joe who wants to look and feel better than ever before.