Skin Deep: An Inside Out Approach To Looking Good Naturally

By Aparna Santhanam

Two questions women always ask: 'Doctor, how can I make my skin glow?' and 'Doctor, please tell me what I should eat for good skin.' From her ten years of practice as a consulting dermatologist, Dr Aparna Santhanam knows without doubt that what we eat has a lasting impact not only on the way we look, but also on the way we age and the way our skin presents itself now and in the future. In this book, she addresses popular concerns about diet and its relation to appearance as well as health. She also outlines the benefits of various foods on the skin along with some easy-to-make recipes that will help your skin glow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Collins India
• Release date: Jul 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9789350294789

Aparna Santhanam

Dr Aparna Santhanam is a well-known dermatologist, cosmetologist, and hair and wellness expert working in the field of beauty, health and wellness for more than ten years. Apart from consulting in her private practice, she was instrumental in establishing medical systems and creating various new services at the Kaya Skin clinics, India's largest chain of cosmetic dermatology clinics.

Book preview

Introduction

What we put as food in our mouth is more important than what we put as creams on our skin

There is a famous saying which goes ‘You are what you eat!’ If that’s the case, wouldn’t you agree with me that it’s time we started eating well in order to look our best?

Being a dermatologist allows me to contribute a little to restoring beauty, preserving youth and enabling some measure of self-esteem in people. In today’s world, appearances count, probably far more than they should, because we have only a few minutes to present ourselves and make an impression.

Over years of interacting with and treating different kinds of people, I have realized that what we eat has a profound effect on the way we look. In the last few years, medical research has proved this beyond doubt. Food contains many vitamins, minerals and antioxidants which have immense preventive and curative effects on our body and, more specifically, on our skin. The other thing to remember is that a lot of the food which was traditionally thought to be unhealthy, really is bad for us. Understanding these basics will help us enhance our beauty inside out.

Before we look at how food can help us enhance our looks naturally, we must understand what kind of skin each of us has and the factors which contribute to or take away from the glow that only healthy, beautiful skin can have. There are a few simple parameters that determine where the glow in the skin comes from but they have always been difficult to define in a scientific manner. Understanding some of these factors is vital so as to bring that glow to our skin, inside out.

We live in an age of speed, where the lack of time dominates our lives. Hence, supplementation of vital nutrients has become the norm and dermatologists prescribe vitamins, antioxidants and so on in large quantities. However, medical research is proving that dietary inclusion of these nutrients is far more effective in the long term than mere supplementation. Most of these substances are found so abundantly in nature that eating them, especially in a largely vegetarian society, would be the simplest thing to do, if we knew their benefits, and a way to incorporate them into our daily eating routine.

There is a new phrase for these benefit rich foods. They are called ‘phytonutrients’ and they are nutritional elements of plant origin. The world is turning more and more, to macrobiotic, vegetarian diets which help us unlock the secrets of beauty and youth. Modern medicine is now proving what traditionally our grandmothers have always known: that eating a combination of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, pulses and dairy products keeps us healthy, glowing and beautiful.

This book is divided loosely into four sections which focus on these issues. The first part deals with our skin, its inherent characteristics and understanding the mysterious glow which elevates skin to a true thing of beauty. The second part focusses on all the food groups available and discusses their benefits, drawbacks and contributions to achieving this glow. Part three is a simplified, alphabetical list of skin rich foods and ingredients that have a profound effect on our looks. The last section of the book incorporates several easy recipes which will help us get started on the path of naturally beautiful skin. While one section leads into another, they can also be read individually. In addition, there is a small note on the external skin routine which forms an integral part of skin maintenance.

Once we understand the benefits, I’m sure each of us will create newer, more innovative recipes to include as many beauty foods into our diet as possible. External beauty is but a reflection of how we feel inside. Let’s get started on eating our way to feeling healthy and looking beautiful, and truly attain skin-deep glow from the inside out!

Skin Talk

Skin Talk

FROM UNDERSTANDING BEGINS CHANGE!

It is often said that beauty lies skin deep. Sure, we don’t want our lives to be a superficial trap of vanity, but who doesn’t feel good when they look their best?

Everything in our lives today is about speed. Speed dating, twenty-twenty cricket, three-minute makeovers–who really has the time for anything more? How soon we can make an impression very often dictates our life path, and in such a scenario, our skin plays an important role.

Skin is, quite simply, the largest organ in our body. It is also one of the few organs to be in direct contact with the outside world. Hence, it truly is a reflection of our inner health and our resilience to the vagaries of nature, climate and pollution.

Why does Mrs Mehra’s skin glow more than Mrs Chopra’s skin?

I am often asked: ‘Doctor, what do you think of my skin? I don’t have any major skin problem, but my skin just doesn’t look that great.’ I suspect that a lot of us fall into this category. No major problems with the skin but no major positives either. So how do you really know how good or bad your skin is?

Medically, there are a large number of attributes and parameters which we use to diagnose skin disorders, but there are very few rules for defining healthy skin. As doctors, we are trained to diagnose illness and treat it so as to make a person healthy again. So, in one very broad sense, we define being healthy as absence of disease. But, to every individual, healthy skin means much more. It is skin which is glowing, bright and clear. However, it is now becoming evident that different people have different types of skin and there are many other factors which make one person’s skin glow more than another’s.

XPECT the best

There are five attributes which help us understand what and how much to expect from our skin. I call them the XPECT factors.

These are the qualities which help us define what approaches to adopt towards sporting the best skin that one can have.

‘Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who’s the most glowing of us all?’

We all want our skin to glow. It is the mysterious X factor that lights up our skin and makes us look and feel radiant and beautiful. But ask someone to define ‘glow’, whether a skin expert or an ordinary person, and it becomes extremely difficult.

A few years ago, I bumped into a cousin who works in the automobile industry. He had just bought a new black car and he had an interesting story. He told me that five paint experts were asked to look at ten black sedan cars without being told the brand and asked to pick the black which looked the best. All five, without hesitation, picked the same car: the BMW. This, according to my cousin, was because the light absorption and reflection was so perfect on the BMW that it shone and glowed the most.

Glow on the skin works in the same way. It is the appearance of the skin when light falls on it. When light falls on any object, we know that there is absorption, reflection and, sometimes, refraction, all occurring simultaneously. Depending on the quality of the underlying skin or PECT factors, the glow or the X factor is either enhanced or diminished.

A few scientific studies have been performed to determine and quantify glow or radiance of the skin. Almost all of them have focussed on optical methods, which are actually used on single-coloured or primary-coloured objects of even textures. The colour of a person’s skin originates from at least two sources: melanin, which is produced in the skin and is predominantly responsible for our colour, and haemoglobin, which is present in the blood vessels on our skin and also contributes in a small but significant way to our colour. The texture of the skin also contributes to the light reflecting off our skin and since this varies wildly from subject to subject, such optical methods are unpredictable for determining reflection on skin. One study involved questionnaires to both, the subjects and the experts after assessment, and compared the impressions. It was found that ‘glow’ seemed almost entirely a function of even colour, texture and clarity, all of which we will look at in the PECT factors.

So, in order to understand how to achieve glow on the skin, we must look at the four factors that help to create it – P (Pores), E (Evenness), C (Clarity) and T (Texture).

Pores

THE HOLE TRUTH

What we see as pores on our skin are simply the openings of oil glands. The skin has oil glands dotted all over it except on the palms and on the soles of our feet. Our face has at least 15 oil glands per square centimetre of skin! Now, if everyone has oil glands, why is it that some people have large visible pores, while others tend to have very few?

The reason is simple. People who have oily skin, produce and show more oil, or sebum, on the skin than those with normal and dry skin. The sebum, along with dead cells, tends to block the openings, which makes the pores appear larger.

One of the first signs of skin aging is the visibility of pores, which usually happens when you are in your early or mid thirties. The openings of the oil glands are surrounded by collagen. Throughout our lives, the collagen on our skin is produced, destroyed and repaired. When more collagen is destroyed than produced, the skin weakens. This is noticed earliest around the pores, which become more lax and open.

Enlarged pores are usually seen first on the T-zone – the forehead, nose and chin – when we are teenagers. When pores represent signs of aging, they are usually seen on the cheeks as little pits. Depending on the percentage of pores, certain instruments and softwares can give you an indication of what your pore index is with respect to your age. Smallness of pores is a desirable attribute not only in itself, but as a contributing element to the X factor. This can be achieved by a combination of the right products to cleanse and manage the skin, supplemented by the correct diet.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS

Evenness of colour

SINGLE NOT MINGLED

The colour of skin has been responsible for so many events in history that most people never seem to get beyond it. It may also be the cause of personal trauma for many of us. Colour of the skin is predominantly determined by one pigment – melanin. We are all born with a certain quantity of melanin in our skin. This is called our constitutive pigmentation and would remain the same throughout our lives if we never exposed ourselves to the sun.

What our skin colour turns into after sun exposure is called facultative pigmentation. Depending on how our skin is affected by the sun, or our skin photo type, we either burn or tan. It is the after-effects of this exposure that leads to unevenness or blotchiness on the skin.

The most desirable quality in skin