Can a plant-based diet make us visually attractive?

PAMELA: (00:00):

So, how does this translate to skin health? There was a review done in 2020. The scientists Solway, McBride, et al ., had a mission and their mission was to give dermatologists, some evidence-based information about any linkage between diet and skin health. Dermatologists were finding that their patients were coming to them more and more seeking dietary advice. So this group did a review of all of the literature and studies that they could find that were out there relating to whole foods plant-based diet, skin health, and some other factors, which I'll show you in a second. They wanted to find studies, particularly talking about telomere length--so that's how we tie into what we're just talking about! In particular, when they were looking for foods that helped with telomere length, they were trying to see if there was a correlation between those foods and the number of antioxidants that people were consuming, and any decrease in the amount of toxins in the diet that cause aging, also known as gerontotoxins. Those are toxins that cause aging (which could be any number of toxins).

PAMELA: (01:27):

So their method was to do a literature review using the keywords that you see here and actually more than these! I took out probably half the keywords that they used that were way over my head, but the important ones I left in here. So "photoaging", "telomeres", "whole food plant-based" (wfpb), "cellular aging", "toxins", "antioxidants"--all these keywords they punched into PubMed, which is where I get a lot of my sources from. They found 79 articles that they thought were fit to include in their review of this potential link between diet and skin health. What they found was that a whole food plant-based diet does maximize antioxidant potential, which makes sense, because even though meat and dairy have some other features that people like in their diet, like protein and calcium and things like that, they don't contain antioxidants and they don't contain fiber. And those are very important for your skin and for your DNA health. Furthermore, the whole food plant-based diet was shown to lengthen telomeres, preventing cellular damage. So their conclusion was that the evidence that they obtained from this review of the literature supports the fact that a whole food plant-based diet will be effective in preventing skin aging.

PAMELA: (02:45):

But was this the first time diet and skin was studied? Obviously not because this was a review, but there are some other notable studies I'm going to mention here. Let me preface by saying that skin aging happens from oxidative stress, right? Oxidative stress is when oxidation happens in our skin. Reactive factors occur in our skin and all tissues of our bodies as a result of cellular metabolism, as a result of exposure to the sun, lack of adequate blood flow, and systemic inflammation. These are all kind of normal products of everyday living. And these factors cause oxidative stress, which over time causes our skin to age.

PAMELA: (03:36):

So there was a 2001 study done. In the group of participants, they studied, they found less actinic damange --"actinic" means related to photo damage, or light damage -- less actinic damage associated with a higher intake of vegetables, legumes, olive oil, and a lower intake of dairy and sugar. In 2009 a similar study found that a higher intake of green and yellow vegetables was associated with less skin wrinkling. And this is mostly they theorized because of the antioxidants again, which counteract the reactive oxidation from everyday living, especially from sun damage.

PAMELA: (04:19):

So this will be the last point. And again, I know I've gone through a lot of material and kept it high level, or low level at different times, depending on what I thought was important. Hopefully this is giving you a good overall view of skin health and youthfulness as it relates to diet. I found a couple of interesting articles that cited some studies. I then checked out those studies and I thought, this is good to include as a wrap-up in this module because it does appeal to our vanity, but there's science behind it as well! And that is that attractiveness is generally speaking, linked to a golden glow, a warmer hue to the skin, like kind of a yellowish hue, not yellow as in jaundice, but just kind of that warm glow that you have in your skin. That warm glow is linked to attractiveness and to health visually, we tend to see people with those hues as more attractive and healthy. And this is true, no matter what the race of the person is--white, Asian, African American, Indian, it doesn't really matter the race or the color of their skin, but the same person with a little bit more warmer glow to their skin is going to appear as more attractive versus that person without it.

PAMELA: (05:44):

And this is where the science comes in! This golden glow is from carotinoids that we eat in our diet. Carotinoids are the red, yellow, and some green pigments that are found in vegetables like carrots, red peppers, spinach--they all have carotinoids in them. The pigments are antioxidants, really. Butthose pigments get into our skin and they give us that glow.

PAMELA: (06:10):

So a 2012 study was done of 35 adults of varying ethnicities. And it aimed to figure out how many servings of fruits and vegetables would these people have to eat. Now, they didn't go whole foods plant-based. It was just focusing on how many servings of fruits and vegetables they would have to eat to obtain that warm glow to their skin. And they actually showed pictures of these people, at the beginning, the middle and the end of the study. These were un-retouched photos. And you could visually see that their skin had a warmer glow and they measured actually what was happening in their skin with a spectral imaging machine. They would actually hold the imaging machine up to these people's faces and take pictures and record what wavelengths were being reflected from their skin at the beginning of the study, middle and end.

PAMELA: (07:10):

And it wasn't just a visual change, although that was there, but they actually measured the amount of reflectivity in their (the study participants') skin. This was a six week study (not six months). Again, it was found that their increase in fruit and vegetable consumption did change their skin hue confirmed with spectral imaging and the minimum number of servings to enhance their apparent health--meaning, when you look at them, you think they're healthy--was 2.91 portions per day. And to enhance their attractiveness was 3.3 portions per day. So I thought that was just really interesting and it kind of just goes with what I observe in daily life.

PAMELA: (07:51):

So those are some of the ways that diet can literally keep us healthy the inside, keep us from aging, and keep our DNA healthy. I did a little bit of an overview of how diet affects our skin health. What role telomeres play, how fruit and vegetable consumption can make us more visually attractive. And in conclusion, it is my belief and I hopefully have provided you enough evidence over the past four weeks that plant-based diets can not only enhance our internal health and longevity, but also preserve our youthfulness. Combined with all of the other benefits that we've seen in this 30 days, I feel like a plant-based diet is really a big one for you from whatever angle you look at it.