If taking care if your skin was easy, we’d be out of a job!
Hi Beauties,
Skin health is very complex and has a lot of differing factors. As a skincare company, we generally focus on topical products and healthy lifestyle habits to help promote healthy, glowing skin (makes sense, right?).
However, looking inward is arguably just as - or MORE - important to balance when trying to maintain healthy, youthful skin. So yes, what you ingest does affect your skin! What I am referring to is your gut health.
You may be asking yourself what exactly “gut health” means…and simply put, gut health is the balance of your digestive systems microbiome and its levels of good and bad bacteria.
Your gut health effects your immune system, nervous system, hormones, mental health and more – but we are going to focus on the role it plays for your skin!
Your gut and your skin are connected
Research shows that it's more common for individuals who suffer from gut imbalance (specifically high levels of bad bacteria) to also suffer from acne or other inflammatory issues (bloating, rosacea, etc).
Therefore, healing any gut imbalance will often lead to a hormone balance and healing. You can learn more here -> SIBO and Acne: How Gut Health Impacts Your Skin
If it's common for you to feel bloated, nauseous, have diarrhea, or you haven’t had luck with topical acne products, it may be time to start focusing on your gut health (even if not, this is still valuable information)!
I think I will have to do a “part 2” post, but I will leave you with a few tips today!
Ways to improve your gut health:
- Probiotics and prebiotics
- Probiotics are foods/supplements that contain live microorganisms intended to maintain or improve “good” bacteria in the body – while prebiotics act as food for good bacteria.
- There are supplement options – can be pricy, but effective!
- Prebiotic foods – onions, garlic, green bananas, asparagus, soybeans, artichokes, leeks, roots
- Probiotic foods – yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, kombucha pickles
- Supplement** – HUM Skin Squad
- Eat your greens!
- Eat a variety of different fruits and vegetables! A diverse microbiome is a good microbiome.
- Also take a greens powder or supplement** – Kaila Nutrition Super Greens or Garden of Life Raw Perfect Superfood Powder
- Watch your intake of high inflammatory foods
- Refined carbs (white bread, French fries, pastries), soda, red meat, processed meat, butter, oil, alcohol and more
If you are interested, you can get more gut health tips here -> Greatist.com
Conclusion
There is so much we don't know and/or understand about our gut and skin microbiomes - it's really an exciting and important field of study. But two things that are known:
- the health of your gut is directly impacted by the foods you do (and don't eat), and
- the health of your gut impacts the health and appearance of your skin.
Follow some of the suggestions in this post - and you may improve both!
** Products I currently use – not an endorsement / not an affiliate.
