by Yu Ming Lui

Created on: April 16, 2008

10 Essential Dietary Supplements For Healthy Skin

We often pay exorbitant amounts of cash for state-of-the-art beauty products to protect our skin from external stresses like sunrays and pollution. While it's tempting to try to find solutions to skin problems in a jar of beauty cream, consider this: your skin is a blueprint of what is going on internally within your body. If you want to achieve that extra radiance or augment your skin regime, here are 10 supplements that can help you.

*Vitamin C and E, when used in combination, lessen the harmful effects of UVB radiation. Vitamin E, in particular, is known for reducing wrinkles and improving skin texture.

*Vitamin A is necessary for the skin tissue repair and maintenance. High doses of beta-carotene, a form of Vitamin A, can reduce the appearance of common skin ailment psoriasis that is a scaly rash. Go for deep red and green vegetables and fruit to load up on beta-carotene.

*B vitamins are important for preventing dermatitis and mild hair loss. The crucial component of vitamin B complex is biotin, which is found in eggs, rice, oatmeal and bananas.

*Selenium reduces your chances of getting sun burnt. This mineral has a significant impact on skin cancer patients.

*Zinc is another mineral supplement that is important for skin nourishment. It reduces oil production, controls acne production, and helps your skin to heal faster if you do get pimples.

*Copper, consumed with Vitamin C and zinc, encourages the your body to produce more elastin, which are the fibers that hold together the skin's structure.

*Essential fatty acids that come from fish oil or evening primrose oil help decrease the appearance white and black heads. The secret lies in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids that help form the skin's natural oil barrier, so it doesn't have to produce excess sebum that results in those unattractive bumps.

*DMAE is a powerful anti-oxidant that squelches free radicals from polluted air and UV rays by deactivating their harmful effects.

*Alpha-lipoic acid is also another anti-oxidant that scientists claim is 100 times stronger than Vitamin C and E. It protects the skin's protein against free radicals and works with other vitamins to rebuild skin cells damaged by environmental assaults.

Learn more about this author, Yu Ming Lui.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.