Antoxidants for Anti-Wrinkling
You've heard me talk about how free radicals can attack your vision and cause inflammation throughout your body. Well, those free radicals hurt more than just your heart and eyes. They can also do a lot of damage to your skin.
When that happens, it can cause wrinkling, age spots, roughness, and scaling. But it doesn't have to stay that way. In fact, it doesn't have to happen at all.
In a recent 12-week study, researchers investigated how free radical damage could be prevented or reversed in patients who took antioxidants, which neutralize free radicals and reduce the oxidative damage they can cause. The researchers monitored 39 volunteers with healthy, normal skin, dividing them into three groups.
The first group received a supplement of antioxidant carotenoids, including lycopene (3 mg), lutein (3 mg), beta-carotene (4.8 mg), vitamin E (10 mg), and selenium (75 mcg) ever day.
Group two received a slightly different mixture of lycopene (6 mg), beta-carotene (4.8 mg), vitamin E (10 mg), and selenium (75 mcg). Group three received only a placebo.
By the end of the study, the groups taking the antioxidants had seen a significant improvement in their skin, including less roughness and scaling. Meanwhile, the skin for the placebo group stayed pretty much the same.
An abundance of the antioxidants used in the study can also be found in red, yellow, and orange, and leafy green vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, and kale.
Unfortunately, most of us just don't get enough antioxidants from food sources. So make sure you're taking a multivitamin with about 200 to 400 units of vitamin E with mixed tocopherols, 250 mg of vitamin C, and at least 5,000 units of beta-carotene with mixed carotenoids.
In addition, I take a powerful antioxidant supplement from New Chapter called Supercritical Antioxidants. It has turmeric, green tea, rosemary, ginger, peppermint, and clove, all in whole food extract form, and all with loads of good research to support their effectiveness in boosting your body's antioxidant levels.
Butterbur just as good as Allegra
This is the kind of news that always gets me excited. It's also the kind of news you don't hear very often -- the kind where researchers decide that a natural supplement is just as good as a manufactured drug.
Recently, a group of researchers got together to evaluate the differences between patients' responses to Allegra -- the popular allergy drug -- and butterbur, a supplement with a pretty good bit of research behind it. And it turns out that butterbur is good for attacking cases of allergic rhinitis (a five-dollar phrase for the sniffles).
The researchers examined 16 patients suffering from the sniffles. Some of the patients received 180 mg of Allegra, some received 50 mg of butterbur, and others received a placebo.
They found that there were no differences between the Allegra and the butterbur -- at least not when it came to the patients' responses to it. Both groups got significant and equal relief. For doctors like me (and patients like you) this is great news. This is one of those rare occasions when we now know almost for sure that a natural supplement is just as useful as a chemically enhanced, manufactured, expensive drug that doesn't always work. And, even better, there are no side effects to worry about with butterbur. With drugs, you just never know what might happen years down the road. The form of butterbur used in just about every study done is called Petadolex. You can find it at www.petadolex.com.
Until next time,
Dr. Alan Inglis
House Calls
