Naturally Beautiful Skin

Part number 1 will be about skin as an organ and [the] building blocks for that.

Part number 2: [The] delivery system of [those] building blocks, from [the] outside [to the] inside, and to our skin.

Part number 3: How you can deliver the building blocks [by] putting topically different substances on your skin.

Let’s start with Part 1. Our skin is made out of cells. Cells [are] made out of building blocks. They are protein, fat, carbohydrates, water, and, also—I call them “helplers”—they are vitamins and minerals. They help cells to restore themselves. And, they also kind of cement them together to make sure that they stay together.

Where are all those building blocks coming from? Well, interestingly enough, our food is made exactly out of the same building blocks, which are protein, fat, carbohydrates, water, vitamins and minerals, and also fibers.

The source of protein is meat, fish, eggs, and, if a person is vegetarian, rice and beans.

The source of fat is—the best source of fat—is actually the vegetable fat, which are olive oil, vegetable oil, avocado, and also fish oil, which is omega-3.

Carbohydrates. The best carbohydrates are complex carbohydrates. They come from grains: quinoa, amaranth, barley, rice. Brown rice is best!

Water. You should have 6 to 8 cups of water every day. And, here is Rule No. 1 from Dr. Veronica: Never drink large quantities of water with your meal. Sure, you can have 4 oz. of wine, 1/2 a beer with your meal, and maybe a little bit [of] tea. But, water [has] to be [consumed] between the meals.

Helpers: Vitamins and Minerals. The best source are fruits and vegetables. Here is Rule No. 2 from Dr. Veronica: You have to have 4 servings of raw vegetables per day, you have to have 2 cooked servings of vegetables per day, and you have to have 2 fruit servings per day if you want to have good skin.

I always tell my patients, “You are exactly what you eat!” Let me give you a [parallel] example. If you want to have a good looking and sturdy house, you have to buy a good quality material. Sure, you can substitute one or two bricks. No big deal. But, if you build your house out of poor quality substances, or poor quality building blocks, your house [is] never going to look good; and, the most important [thing is] it’s never going to last. The same—absolutely the same—I can say about skin!

If you want to have quality skin, you cannot substitute good fat with bad fat. I already named [the] good fat. It’s olive oil, vegetable oil, avocado, and fish oil. You don’t substitute it with animal fat. Unfortunately, in our diet, we have much more animal fat than vegetable fat.

You cannot substitute complex greens—or complex carbohydrates—with simple carbohydrates, which are cookies, candies, white bread, [and] soft drinks. You are not going to have good quality skin.

I tell my patients, “When you shop, you don’t buy only bulk of building materials or building blocks for your skin. You buy the quality. You buy fresh fruits and vegetables. You don’t want your food to have additives, [preservatives,] or coloring because you don’t have [any] use for that. And, also, they contribute to premature aging.”

Here is my simplified version of [the] digestive tract. Food, mouth (there’s the teeth), esophagus, stomach, pancreatic glands, [and] liver. These two glands goes straight into small intestines. [The] small intestines and large intestines are [the] two organs that are responsible for [the] absorption of building blocks into the bloodstream; and, eventually they will be carried into the skin.

The food that hasn’t been broken down [and] absorbed—[or] also [with] a little bit more in fibers—eventually will be excreted.

Let’s look at [the] individual parts of our digestive tract.

Mouth. Saliva has weak enzymes that will help us to break food into smaller particles. It also has antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties. That means that if you put into your mouth food that has any of those bugs, they will be cured right here.

Teeth. Their job is to bite and to grind the food. There is no other place in our digestive tract where this job could be done. If your food is not converted into almost [the] consistency of sour cream, it means that [if a too] big piece comes in, [then] it’s literally too big to be absorbed into [the] digestive tract. As a result, [a] big piece comes in, and [a] big piece comes out.

Stomach. [It’s] responsible for [the] production of hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid breaks big pieces of protein into smaller particles. Many medications—prescription medications, over-the-counter medications—will affect the production of hydrochloric acid. Let me give you an example. People who take pain medications—aspirin, ibuprofen—they know if you take [a] high enough dose, you actually can create a type of pain. What that means [is] that they create the inflammation of the lining of the stomach. It’s suffering. It cannot do [its] job properly. As a result, the production of hydrochloric acid goes down.

Well, they need to solve—they need to treat themselves—[so] they run [to] the pharmacy and buy antacid medication, which further will dry up the production of hydrochloric acid. It means that the protein is not going to be broken down into smaller particles. Again, they are too big and unchewed to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

If everything goes fine, then broken down food arrives into [the] small intestines. [The] pancreatic glands produce enzymes that will break down small pieces of protein into amino acids, which are actually [the] building blocks for the skin. It’s [also] going to break down [the] carbohydrates and fat. Also, [the] liver is the organ that is responsible for [the] final breaking down of the fat into smaller pieces.

Prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, recreation[al] drugs, and also alcohol will affect the way [the] liver works. Everybody knows that if [a] person drinks alcohol, it literally kills the liver. It means that it kills every single cell in the liver. Well, [if] there is no cell, there is no body to produce bile. [Since] bile is not produced, fat is not broken down. So, as a result, it cannot be absorbed and cannot be a building block for our skin.

[The] small intestines and the large intestines—[the] place where building blocks eventually get absorbed into the bloodstream with the water. Again, medications—pain medications or antibiotics—can affect the health of the lining of this part of [the] digestive tract. If there is damage done to that, then the digested food comes in, and, again, probably partially will be absorbed and also [a] big part of that will go out.

Now we understand that it’s not only important to put a bulk of food in our mouth, and not only to put a high quality of the food, but also how every portion of our digestive tract is important in order to break it down into smaller pieces and the [nutrients] will be absorbed into the bloodstream and eventually delivered into the skin. If any part of that is missing, you can’t be sure that our food that we eat will be absorbed and be delivered into the skin. It means that our skin eventually will start [to] age faster because it is deprived of some nutrients.

[A] good example of traffic going in is the nitroglycerin patch. Doctors prescribe nitroglyercin in the form of patches for patients who have [a] cardiovascular condition. It’s applied right over the heart. Eventually, nitroglycerin is absorbed into the skin, into the bloodstream, and exhibits its impact on the cardiovascular system.

When you apply cream or lotion on your skin, you physically block pores. And, by doing that, you block the traffic that goes out of the skin. And, this way, you’re moisturizing your skin by preserving the water in your skin. Creams and lotions have [the] substances that will help to build our cells. And, we already know them. They are amino acids, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. They are helpers for the building [of] the skin cells.

[A] good example of [a] cream that has amino acids is peptide cream. Peptides are short chains of amino acids tied together that could be absorbed into the skin and work as [the] building blocks for our cells.

[An] example of fat is avocado or avocado oil. When applied on the skin, it feels very fatty and skin gets puffy after that.

[A] good example of carbohydrates that [are] applied on the skin is avena cream. And, carbohydrates came into that cream from oats. If you look on the microscope on carbohydrates, they look almost like [the] branches of the tree. And, those branches, they trap water, and that’s how [the] hydrating effect is made by applying carbohydrates into your skin.

I like Vitamin C. Once when applied on the skin, you can almost physically, immediately feel [the] effect of Vitamin C on the skin. [The] skin gets tighter. And, also, if you apply it again and again, [the] skin gets brighter. Vitamin K, if you apply it under the eye to treat dark circles, you will see how, over time, the skin gets lighter.

When I was talking to you about food, I told you that I want to have quality building blocks in our food and I also want to have—as little as possible— preservatives and coloring agents in our food. Absolutely the same could apply to creams and lotions. On the back label of creams or lotions, [the] 2 or 3 first substances are usually in [the] highest concentrations. Then, [the] further down you go [on] the label, the lower the concentration of substances [are] in the cream. They usually have preservatives, fragrance, and coloring agents. And, that’s not the substances that you want to have on your skin and in your bloodstream because you have no use for them.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to buy a cream without preservatives because of the time limit between the time when the cream was made and the time when you buy it. It could be days, weeks, or even months. Also, once when you put your finger into the cream, you’ve contaminated it with bacteria. So preservatives, they have antibacterial, antiviral, and anfungal agents that will kill all these bugs that are not wanted in your cream.

Fragrances. I usually look for the cream that has no fragrance. I have no use for that.

Coloring agents. We don’t want them on our skin. They’re usually named as Yellow No. 5, Red No. 5, or, for [the] blue color, it’s named “Blue.”