Skin & longevity

You can increase longevity by improving the health of your skin.  It’s your largest organ and the cellular age of your skin affects vitality and, in fact, once you are over 60 the condition of your skin is of life and death importance.

Feeding our skin is not just about beauty.  Skin protects you against a myriad of allergens, pathogens, infection, and foot ulcers.  Skin thinning is a major problem as we age that weakens the skin barrier leading to tears in the skin, abrasions, easy bruising, and foot ulcers. The incidents of foot ulcers in those 65 and older is growing. Foot ulcers can lead to death within 5 years even when treated.

Bioage determination is a growing field of research which is finding that bioage of our skin correlates with longevity - mainly because of senescent cells and what is good for our skin is good for our overall body and what harms the skin, harms other cells in our body.

Senescent cells are cells that are damaged to the point that they no longer replicate, but do not die.  Senescent cells exist throughout the body, but accumulate more densely in the skin due to sun damage, environmental stressors, and nutritional oversights.

These cells inhibit the healing of the skin and are implicated in cancer, diabetes, dementia, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and decline in eyesight,  Senescent cells secrete cytokines, pro-inflammatory factors that not only damage nearby cells, but also pass into the bloodstream contributing to systemic inflammation and cell dysfunction.

Eating for skin health and practicing skin care is less cosmetic, but is deeply connected to your overall health.  You can strengthen your body by  lowering the age of your skin.

1. Up your intake of berries and dark leafy grains.
   
2. Eliminate dairy - it ages the skin
   
3. Fast or a fasting mimicking cleanse like our jolie juice cleanse once a season for 3 days.
   
4. Have alcohol free days
   
5. Get some sun, but use sunscreen judiciously.
   
6. Green tea
   
7. Consume collagen - bone broth, collagen added to smoothies
   
8. Integrate the following into your skincare routine: vitamin c, hyaluronic acid, resveratrol, and retinols.
   

Specifically to decrease senescent cells:

1. Integrate fasting or low calorie cleanses into your health plan.  Once a season allows for regular deep cleans out of senescent cells throughout the body.  You can either fast or mimic fasting through low calorie cleanses like a jolie level 2 or 3 juice cleanse as well as the 10 day reset.  
   
2. A 12 hour daily fast also stimulates autophagy - the process of the body eating senescent cells. 
   
3. Eat berries - strawberries and blueberries in particular - apples, mushrooms, dark chocolate, and many leafy greens.  These all contain substances which trigger the targeted death of senescent cells and repair the damage done by senescent cells.
   

The bonus here is the more you nurture your glow the better you feel, the more confidently you face your world, and the more you improve every aspect of health.