Let’s all have
Beautiful Skin By Charlotte Meschede - Nutritionist
The truth is that beautiful skin comes from what you put IN not what you put ON! Most people tend to forget how important it is to look after your skin until such time as it presents a problem. We tend to take it for granted and yet skin health is every bit as important as the health of every other part of your body. In fact your skin is the body’s first line of defense against physical invasion of foreign organisms. Just think how a cut or wound can allow pathogenic bacteria to enter the bloodstream and cause major diseases? If we don’t treat wounds appropriately, infections can be very detrimental to the point that gangrene can occur and amputations may be the result! I will never forget my first exposure to gangrene when I was doing my internship! The patient was a young boy, who had previously been admitted to hospital due to an illness. Once he was better, the doctor discharged him. However, this poor young boy had never slept on a bed or been given 3 meals per day so being discharged was literally the last thing he wanted! Once he was home, his main goal was to be re-admitted to hospital. After claiming fruitlessly that he was still sick and needed to go back to hospital, he put his feet and lower limbs into a bucket of boiling water! Needless to say, he was admitted with severe third degree burns from his knees 16
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down. Owing to his poor nutritional status, the burns turned gangrenous very quickly and he ended up losing most of the muscle tissue around his calves, but through careful nursing and major nutritional supplementation, we managed to prevent amputation. Whilst this is an extreme case, it is a grim reminder of how important skin health can be. None of us like to have scars or marks on our skin and let me not even discuss the effect of ageing on the skin! That topic requires a chapter all of it’s own! Skin is the largest organ in the human body. Strictly speaking, it is an endocrine organ as it controls both internal and external metabolic processes. The skin will reflect internal imbalances such as malnutrition, digestive issues, and deficiencies. Therefore it goes without saying that the integrity of the skin and mucous membranes (Internal skin) is vital as it forms the protective coating for internal organs and tissues. Nutritional factors can affect hydration of the skin, sebum (oil) production and elasticity. The most common skin conditions associated with nutrition are the following:
