collagen – Doctor lead, boutique cosmetic skincare clinic https://www.specialistskinsolutions.com.au Sat, 09 May 2020 03:20:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.9.1 Smart Tips for Boosting Collagen for Skin https://www.specialistskinsolutions.com.au/smart-tips-for-boosting-collagen-for-skin/ Tue, 17 Mar 2020 05:46:20 +0000 https://www.specialistskinsolutions.com.au/?p=7734 Healthy skin needs collagen to look great. The more protein in your skin, the better it looks. If you want plumper, firmer, youthful skin, it’s important to make sure […]

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Healthy skin needs collagen to look great. The more protein in your skin, the better it looks. If you want plumper, firmer, youthful skin, it’s important to make sure you have enough collagen. Today, we will provide easy lifestyle tips to increase collagen for skin that is healthy and radiant.

Content:

What is collagen?

Collagen is the building block of healthy skin. A network of collagen fibers is what keeps skin strong and supple. Think of it like scaffolding for your skin. Collagen is an essential protein that keeps you looking great.

It’s easy to spot skin that lacks collagen. When you look in the mirror and think “Oh, what’s happened to me?”, that’s a telltale sign. Sagging skin, fine lines and wrinkles develop when skin doesn’t have enough collagen.

Collagen and aging

Skin Ageing Infographics

It’s no wonder that aging skin is a problem as we get older. Collagen production slows with age. Ultimately, the collagen starts to degenerate and breaks down, leaving you with aging skin, lines and wrinkles.

That’s why it is important to make healthy lifestyle choices that support collagen production, especially as you get older. The tips in this article will help you do exactly that.

Inside skin cells, there are fibroblasts that produce collagen. If you aren’t quite so healthy, are feeling stressed or not getting enough sleep, that all takes a toll on collagen production. Not only is the amount of collagen produced by skin decreased, but the quality of the collagen isn’t as good. Skin starts to sag and look tired, leading to an aged appearance. If you have signs of skin aging, today’s advice will help turn that around.

Tips for boosting collagen

Smart lifestyle choices support collagen production. Here are some easy ways to get started.

Eat dietary collagen

Increasing collagen for better skin starts with a healthy diet. Whole foods are an excellent way to up your natural collagen intake. A collagen-rich diet focused on lean protein like chicken, turkey and fish can help. High-fiber foods like dark leafy greens, beans and prunes and are a good source as well. Collagen itself is a type of protein fiber.

Fatty acids and rich oils can aid the skin cell membrane to help with collagen to make skin nice and healthy as well. Think olive oil, salmon and nuts.

Quinoa, bone broth, lentils, dark-colored vegetables, berries and citrus fruits are also good choices.

Collagen supplements are another way to improve collagen. Powder collagen is tasteless and odorless, so it’s perfect for adding to beverages or smoothies. Hydrolyzed collagen is best. If you struggle with adding collagen to your diet, ingestible collagen supplements are an easy way to support collagen production.

Spices can improve collagen levels, too. Turmeric is one of the best. It’s an anti-inflammatory that can make a big difference in the skin cells by reducing inflammation. That allows the fibroblasts inside skin cells to focus on making collagen, rather than fighting inflammation.

Antioxidant-rich foods have a similar effect. Blueberries and dark-colored fruits and vegetables are very high in antioxidants. These work by reducing the effect of environmental stressors and skin pollution so that it stays healthy and produces collagen normally.

Sun exposure

Protect your skin from Sun

A day in the sun may give your skin a glow, but it’s what is going on under the surface that we are concerned about. Sun exacerbates skin aging by causing collagen breakdown.

UV rays are proven to disfigure collagen structures in the skin. If you look under a microscope at the skin of someone with a lot of sun exposure, the collagen fibers look like a tangled mess. It’s no wonder sun worshippers have premature wrinkles and rough, thick skin.

Reducing your time in the sun can prevent damaging collagen and keep skin looking healthy and youthful. Daily sunscreen (SPF 30+) is a must. You can get the proper SPF in sunscreen, tinted moisturizers with sunscreen, daily face lotion with SPF and even foundation with sunscreen built in.

Reduce alcohol

Drinking alcohol breaks down collagen. It can also reduce the quality of your sleep, which is vital for normal collagen production. If you must imbibe, drink red wine in moderation. Red wine has antioxidants in it, which are good for skin. An occasional glass of red wine won’t hurt.

Smoking and collagen

Smoking hurts your collagen production. The chemicals in cigarettes are bad for you. It is not part of a healthy lifestyle. Being less healthy in general slows collagen production since your skin isn’t functioning optimally.

Switching to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) can help, but the goal is to remove nicotine from your system altogether eventually. Staying away from all the chemicals in cigarettes can go a long way toward better skin and collagen production.

Limit caffeine

Everyone loves a cup of coffee in the morning. However, caffeine can deplete the collagen pathways that help make skin nice and healthy. This can accelerate aging skin, causing lines and wrinkles to form.

If you need caffeine, tea is a better choice. Green tea and black tea contain antioxidants that improve skin health. Try to stick to one cup a day.

Drinking caffeine at night can cause you to stay up late as well. Getting enough sleep is a key component of healthy, glowing skin.

Kick sugary foods

Sugary foods affect skin cells. Eating sugar and high-glycemic foods that convert to sugar in your body can inadvertently lead to skin aging. That’s because sugary foods produce free radicals in the skin and body. While the skin is busy fighting off those nasty free radicals, it has less time and energy left to make collagen. This is exactly what we don’t want to happen.

Refined sugar, such as in soda and baked goods, is the worst offender. A sweet treat on occasion is fine. But sugar works its way into your diet in sneaky ways. For example, a fruit smoothie may seem like a healthy choice, but some fruits like mango have a ton of natural sugar. While fruit sugar (fructose) is better than the refined sugar in cupcakes, it still leads to free radicals in the body and skin.

Bread, pasta, rice and carbs may be sugar free, but they are high-glycemic index foods. That means the carbohydrates convert to sugar (glucose) in your body. The result is similar to eating sugar directly. So you may want to limit eating carbs, too.

De-stress for better skin

If you have a huge amount of stress in your life, such as changing careers, a break up, death of a loved one or some other shock, you may look older practically overnight. When the body is under constant stress, a stress hormone known as cortisol comes into play. This is bad news for collagen production.

Stress can also cause you to make poor lifestyle choices that limit collagen in skin. It’s easy to turn to sugar, caffeine and cigarettes when you are feeling down. But research shows that eating well, exercise, meditation and healthy lifestyle choices provide stress relief in a healthy way that also supports beautiful skin.

Yoga, going for a walk, redecorating your bedroom, calling a friend or taking a relaxing bubble bath can ease your mind. Changing up your daily routine is also a good way to de-stress. Even just taking a different route to work, going to the park or stopping at a new coffee shop can boost your mood.

When you are happy, healthy skin will follow.

Get a good night’s sleep

A bad night of sleep can zap your skin fast. Meanwhile, a good night of sleep can keep cortisol levels in check. Cortisol is a stress hormone that is known to decrease collagen and elastin production. Cortisol is skin’s enemy. You can fight it by improving sleep quality.

A calm, restful night of sleep can aid amino acids and glycine, which are components of the protein that makes up collagen. Aim for eight hours a night, and your skin will thank you. You will wake with fresh, rejuvenated skin. What better way to start the day?

Exercise to improve collagen

Working out is not only good for building muscles and lean bodies, but it’s great for the skin as well. Exercise boosts collagen levels through growth hormones, says dermal nurse Lea Barclay of Specialist Skin Solutions. It also improves circulation, which helps to flush toxins from the skin.

Skincare treatments

Skincare Treatment

If your skin is in a rut, clinical skincare treatments are fabulous for a quick pick-me-up. Anti-aging skin treatments and facials instantly make you look better. Not only that, but they feed your skin with all the healthy, healing skincare ingredients that revitalize skin from within.

Lea loves vitamin A for its age-defying benefits. A nice hydrating mask with collagen peptides or collagen peptide cream at the clinic will also promote a youthful complexion.

Clinical skincare treatments are about more than just good looks, though. Advanced cosmetic treatments at Specialist Skin Solutions can actually make skin healthier. Regular skin maintenance is an important part of radiant, glowing skin.

Collagen = Beautiful Skin

You can refresh, rejuvenate and revive skin by making a few lifestyle changes. As you can see, it’s really easy to boost collagen once you know what you are doing. “Collagen loves clean living,” Lea says.

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]]> Collagen for Skin, What is the Fuss? https://www.specialistskinsolutions.com.au/collagen-for-skin-what-is-the-fuss/ Tue, 17 Mar 2020 03:09:03 +0000 https://www.specialistskinsolutions.com.au/?p=7713 Collagen is a must for healthy skin. Surely you’ve heard about it. Well, it’s not all hype. The skin needs collagen to look youthful, strong and supple. If […]

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Collagen is a must for healthy skin. Surely you’ve heard about it. Well, it’s not all hype. The skin needs collagen to look youthful, strong and supple. If you suffer with tired, aging skin, it could be that your skin lacks collagen.

Let’s learn more about what collagen is, why your skin needs it, and how you can boost collagen the easy way for more beautiful, youthful-looking skin.

Content

What is collagen?

Skin Ageing Infographics

Collagen is a type of protein. It provides strength and support between cell layers and the muscles that are responsible for making facial expression. Collagen also provides a foundation so that the skin surface has support, helping to prevent wrinkles and skin sagging.

Types of collagen in skin

There are many different types of collagen. Roughly 80% of the collagen in skin is composed of collagen Type 1 and collagen Type 3. When it comes to rejuvenating skin, this is where you want to focus your efforts.

Collagen Type I

This is by far the most abundant collagen in the human body. This hearty, strong collagen fiber is found in the skin, tendons, artery walls, cornea of the eye, the endomysium which surrounds muscle fibers, bones and teeth.

Collagen Type III

This is the collagen that is produced by young fibroblasts before the tougher type I collagen gets synthesized. Type III collagen supports strong skin, muscles, bones, hair and nail growth. It is also found in the artery walls, uterus and intestines.

How is collagen made?

Fibroblasts are a type of specialized cell that is found in the connective tissue of humans and animals. Fibroblasts are like little collagen-making factories. They also play a critical role in wound healing.

The job of fibroblasts is to make tropocollagen, which is a collagen precursor, and also ground substance, a jelly-like matrix that fills the spaces that exist between the cells and fibers found in connective tissue.

Why skin needs collagen

Collagen is the building block of healthy skin. It’s what gives skin structure and integrity. Without it, the skin has little support. A strong network of collagen fibers makes skin firm and resilient. Loss of collagen leads to a tired, aged appearance due to the skin sagging, wrinkles, creases and fine lines that form when the surface of the skin doesn’t have a strong foundation to give it structure.

Signs of skin that lacks collagen

The skin is predisposed to all sorts of problems when collagen is lacking. Namely, an aged or tired appearance. While other factors may contribute to premature aging of the skin, collagen plays a big role in how skin looks and behaves.

Telltale signs of skin that lacks collagen include:

  • Crow’s feet
  • Nasolabial folds
  • Eyebrow furrows (11s)
  • Forehead lines
  • Sagging cheeks and jowls
  • Loss of skin strength
  • And more.
Signs of Skin lack of Collagen

How collagen changes with age

Research has proven that collagen production slows dramatically with age. By age 30, collagen production is nearly half of what it was in your younger years. Unfortunately, this shows on skin rather quickly. The problem gets worse each year as collagen production continues to slow down.

Young skin has plenty of collagen. For this reason, youthful skin is strong, resilient and supple. Wrinkles, sagging skin and fine lines are nowhere to be seen. With a strong network of collagen fibers, the skin looks its best.

While nature takes its course and more years pass by, it is inevitable that collagen production will slow down. While this can be dismaying, that is no reason to give up hope. For women that are concerned about aging skin, it pays to take steps to help skin produce as much collagen as possible.

It’s not just the amount of collagen produced that is important, but also the quality of the collagen. The best way to support collagen production is with a healthy lifestyle.

Lifestyle choices that inhibit collagen production

Poor lifestyle choices can affect collagen production in disastrous ways. A sugary diet, smoking and alcohol consumption definitely take a toll on skin. One reason is that they all produce heaps of free radicals, which are the enemy of healthy skin.

What are free radicals?

Free radicals happen when oxygen in the body splits into atoms with single electrons. Electrons prefer to be in pairs. These atoms, known as free radicals, go scavenging to find other electrons to pair with. It’s basically a war of stealing electrons that can wreak havoc on the body. The fight for electrons stresses the body, causing damage to cells, proteins (like collagen) and DNA.

For our purposes, we are concerned with the skin only. While the skin is busy fighting off free radicals, it leaves skin cells with little time or energy to do what they are really supposed to be doing, which is making new collagen, among other things. In order to maximize your skin’s collagen potential, it is very important to maintain a healthy lifestyle and minimize free radicals.

To protect skin from free radicals, avoid the following:

  • Smoking & tobacco products
  • Alcohol consumption
  • Nicotine use (Smoking, vaping, nicotine patches and gum aka NRT)
  • Excess sun exposure
  • AIr pollution
  • Sugary diet
  • Too much caffeine
  • Processed foods
  • Exposure to harsh, irritating chemicals
  • Drug use
  • Not drinking enough water
  • And other unhealthy lifestyle choices.

Fighting free radicals for healthy skin

In addition to eating well, exercising and limiting caffeine, alcohol and tobacco products, you can also introduce antioxidants to the game. Antioxidants are free-radical defenders that work to promote calm, healthy skin.

Eat an antioxidant-rich diet

There are two ways to incorporate antioxidants into your routine. The first is by adding them to your diet. Blueberries, acai berries and green tea are excellent sources of antioxidants.

Here are some of the foods highest in antioxidants you can try:

  • Blueberries
  • Goji berries
  • Nuts
  • Sweet potato
  • Whole grains
  • Fish
  • Red cabbage
  • Artichokes
  • Grapes
  • Raspberries
  • Beans
  • Green tea
  • Spinach & dark, leafy greens
  • Beets
  • Orange vegetables

Antioxidant skincare

While you are eating an antioxidant-rich diet, you can attack free radicals another way. Topical antioxidants help support the fight against free radicals that compete for collagen production in skin cells.

One of the best antioxidants for skin is topical vitamin C. The best vitamin C serums have a stabilizer (such as vitamin E) to reduce oxidation, since vitamin C is known to degrade quickly in the bottle. That way, you can make the bottle last months instead of weeks.

Simply dab a few drops of vitamin C serum on your face, neck, hands and décolletage every day. As a bonus, vitamin C has shown some sun protection activity, which is great for diminishing signs of skin aging. While this is no reason to skip daily sunscreen, it can’t hurt.

It’s not just vitamin C that can boost your antioxidant game. Green tea moisturizers are gaining favor since green tea is packed with antioxidants that may calm and soothe skin that has been irritated by free radicals and environmental stress. Nearly all anti-pollution skincare products contain antioxidants that help shield skin from the elements while boosting free radical-fighting activity.

Tips to boost collagen

If you are tired of looking old and tired, you may want to increase your collagen intake. Hydrolyzed collagen supplements and eating collagen-rich foods are a great way to do this. Another tip to remember is using sunscreen every day. Too much sun degrades collagen, and the damage can last a lifetime. It’s hard to reverse sun-damaged skin, but certain treatments may help. Getting enough sleep and de-stressing is also necessary to help skin cells function optimally so as to maximize collagen production.

Clinical treatments to correct collagen loss in skin

It’s important to preserve and boost collagen production by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. But the fact is, doing so only goes so far. We can’t stop skin aging altogether. However, advanced clinical treatments can make up the difference when skin aging becomes moderate to severe.

SkinPen treatment

Collagen Induction Therapy

SkinPen is an in-office dermatological treatment that penetrates the skin with fine microscopic needles. It works by creating micro-channels in the skin, a controlled skin injury that stimulates natural skin repair. As a result, skin produces extra collagen and elastin. First, the skin is cleansed and then a numbing cream is applied to make the treatment more comfortable. The needles are tiny, so there is no need to be afraid.

SkinPen also boosts active ingredients and PRP facials since the microscopic holes made by the pen allow ingredients to penetrate deeper, enhancing the effects.

PRP facial (platelet-rich plasma)

One of our favorite collagen-enhancing treatments at Specialist Skin Solutions is platelet-rich plasma (PRP). You might know it as the vampire facial. Sounds icky, but the results are beautiful. PRP is excellent after SkinPen treatments. The combination causes controlled damage to the skin while introducing your body’s own nutrient-rich plasma (derived from a small sample of your blood) to improve skin firmness and radiance.

Collagen induction modalities stimulate skin to repair and strengthen itself. As dermal therapist Lea Barclay says, “It’s giving a gentle nudge to the skin to say, hey, hang on, we need a little bit more” collagen. The skin’s a lot fresher after treatment and the recovery period is short.

PRP facials stimulate collagen production for firmer skin, improves skin texture and even reduces age spots and sun damage as well.

For post-menopausal women, skin thinning is a problem due to hormones. SkinPen with PRP therapy has been shown to thicken the epidermis, adding strength and resiliency.

Vitamin A peel

Vitamin A is an anti-aging all-star ingredient. At Specialist Skin Solutions, Lea highly recommends doing a vitamin A peel to improve signs of skin aging. The results can be remarkable.

Chemical peels quickly lift off all the dead skin cells, creating a chain reaction to stimulate collagen in the skin, Lea explains. As the old, dead skin sloughs away, the fresh, radiant skin beneath it has a chance to shine. If you suffer from dull skin and/or fine wrinkles caused by collagen loss, peels are excellent for that.

Many women are scared of chemical peel downtime. Not all peels have much downtime if any, though. Light, medium and deep peels are available depending on the severity of skin aging and which condition(s) you wish to treat. With light vitamin A peels, mild flaking and a bit of red or pink skin is generally the worst you can expect. Different strengths are available depending on the skin concern.

Specialist Skin Solutions will tailor the peel strength to your exact needs, and our specialists will advise you of any special aftercare instructions if necessary.

Note: Pregnant women should avoid vitamin A due to a potential risk of birth defects.

Your skin needs collagen to thrive

Collagen is vital to skin that is strong, healthy and resilient. For women with premature aging, it’s important to promote collagen production naturally. There are many steps you can take to boost collagen production, and they are surprisingly simple to do at home. Clinical beauty treatments can take anti-aging results a step further.

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