No one wants lines, wrinkles and dry, sagging skin staring back at them in the mirror. Not only is healthy skin important for making you look vibrant and youthful, the underlying causes of skin damage also are creating damage inside your body.

When it comes to skin damage, there are two major underlying causes. One is caused by decreased collagen production creating the typical lines and that comes with getting older. People who once felt young and vibrant feel uncomfortable when they see crow’s feet, elevens and drier, sagging skin staring back at them in the mirror. The other category of damage, which can contribute to acne, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis, is caused by chronic inflammation. In this situation, healthy cell turnover is disrupted, creating skin damage, redness and irritation. 

While the amount of skin we have varies depending on someone’s size, a good estimate is that you have about 17,000 square centimeters of skin.¹ That’s 18 square feet of skin! Your skin naturally sheds dead cells in a process called desquamation. We lose about 1000 skin cells per square centimeter every hour.² That’s seventeen million skin cells every day! When your skin’s healthy, your body is hard at work producing new cells to replace the ones you’ve lost. But with time, environmental toxins, systemic inflammation, nutritional deficiencies, and sun damage, skin loses its ability to regenerate. Here is what research shows are some strategies that support healthy skin. 

Probiotics

Probiotics have been shown to promote healthy skin in people with acne, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis. In my training as a naturopathic doctor, I was taught the gut plays a key role in systemic diseases. And in fact, research confirms that gut health has indirect benefits for the skin. Probiotics promote healthy skin by strengthening the intestinal lining, promoting healthy inflammation and immunity, and by manufacturing nutrients, such as butyrate and other short-chain fatty acids that help heal the gut.^3,4 

In healthy people, a healthy intestinal lining protects us from inflammatory molecules passing into the bloodstream and traveling throughout the body. However, during gut dysbiosis, the intestinal lining is damaged, which can cause leaky gut. Inflammatory molecules can reach the bloodstream and create systemic inflammation, including skin inflammation. Fortunately, clinical trials demonstrate that probiotics promote a healthy gut microbiome and significantly improve skin health in people with acne, dry and sensitive skin, atopic dermatitis, and psoriasis. Beyond skin health, some of the top benefits of probiotics include supporting healthy digestion, mood, liver function, and cardiovascular health. 

In the winter, drier, colder weather can create cracked, irritated, and painful skin. While moisturizing is important, a clinical trial showed that supplementing with a mixture Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus significantly improved healthy skin barrier and moisture. Skin integrity was significantly improved within six weeks of starting the dietary supplement, and the amount of water lost through the skin was significantly reduced.⁵

Probiotics have also been shown to help people with acne. Acne is the bane of many teenagers, but older adults are not immune to flare-ups later in life. Acne affects 85% of adolescents and young adults (12-25 years old) in Western countries, and as many as 50% continue struggling with adult acne.^6,7

In a 2013 randomized, open-label clinical trial, researchers evaluated the effects of an oral probiotic blend of B. bifidum, L. acidophilus, and L. bulgaricus on adult acne. Forty-five volunteers (18-35 years old) with adult acne who took the multistrain probiotic for 12 weeks experienced an 82% reduction in acne, which was significantly better than volunteers taking only the antibiotic.⁸ 

Two additional studies evaluated the effects of taking probiotics alone. One looked at using a single probiotic species of L. rhamnosus and showed a 30% improvement in acne over 12 weeks in adults.⁹ The other study, which combined L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus for twelve weeks resulted in an up to 66% decrease in adult acne.¹⁰ 

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory condition that makes your skin red and itchy. In a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial, fifty children with moderate atopic dermatitis ages 4 to seventeen years old were randomized to receive either a probiotic supplement containing B. lactis, B. longum, and L. casei or placebo for twelve weeks. All volunteers continued their topical anti-inflammatory steroid medications and moisturizing cream. At the end of the study, 96% of the children taking the probiotic improved, compared to 46% in the placebo group. Using a standardized symptom scoring model for atopic dermatitis, the researchers concluded that the main symptoms score decreased by 83% in the group taking the probiotic compared to only a 24% improvement in the placebo group, and topical steroid use also significantly decreased in the probiotic group compared to placebo.¹¹ 

Another study determined that taking a probiotic blend shifts the gut microbiome to a healthier mix of bacteria, which is associated with improved skin health.12 Three clinical trials, each lasting 8 weeks, detected a 63-68% improvement in volunteers taking probiotics.^12-15 They used probiotics mixtures containing B. bifidum, B. breve, B. infantis, L. bulgaricus, L. casei, L. rhamnosus, L. salivarius or S. thermophilus.

Probiotics have all been shown to be helpful for people with psoriasis, another skin condition characterized by chronic inflammation. Researchers conducted a 12-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial on ninety patients with psoriasis (ages 18-70 years old). The volunteers took a probiotic supplement containing B. lactis, B. longum and L. rhamnosus or placebo. At the end of the study, nearly 67% of the volunteers taking the probiotic experienced a reduction in the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score of at least 75%, compared to only 42% of those taking the placebo.¹⁶ Another study that provided only B. infantis for 6-8 weeks to people with psoriasis. At the end of the study, there was a significant decrease in systemic inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha).⁴

Collagen 

Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body. It’s the scaffolding that holds your body together. Collagen is actually three strands of repeating amino acids wrapped around each other that create the shape and support for tissues and provides a scaffold for cell growth and movement.¹⁷ Collagen is so strong that even its smallest building blocks, called tropocollagen, are five to ten times stronger than steel.¹⁸ 

Collagen is found in your muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, blood vessels, teeth, and even in the cornea and vitreous (a gelatinous substance) of your eye.¹⁹ It provides all these tissues with structure, strength, and flexibility. Collagen is critical for healthy bone and joints, and required for younger, firmer looking skin.²⁰

We all marvel over the fresh, plump skin of a newborn, and their flawless faces, without a single wrinkle. Pinch a baby’s cheeks and their skin snaps right back into place. That’s due to their skin’s high amounts of healthy collagen. Collagen composes about 80% of your skin. 

When you look in the mirror, if your skin is getting looser, has more wrinkles, or is sagging a bit and looking dry, this is likely because you’re losing collagen. Skin health is considered one of the clues to overall “well-being”. We can’t see our internal organs aging, but skin offers us the first obvious signs of the mark of time. And what you see in the skin may also be happening in the bone. Both normal aging and chronic stress reduce collagen production. 

Collagen improves skin elasticity and moisture. In one randomized, placebo-controlled study of 69 women who were between thirty-five and fifty-five years of old, supplementing with collagen for 8 weeks led to a significant improvement in skin elasticity.²¹ In another study, supplementing with hydrolyzed collagen improved skin hydration.²²

A review of over sixty scientific studies on collagen found that taking collagen peptides promotes healthy tissue regeneration, collagen synthesis and supports healthy joints, bone density, and skin.²³

Vitamin C

In addition to promoting healthy collagen production, vitamin C plays an important role in protecting the skin from ultraviolet radiation from the sun and the skin-damaging free radicals sun exposure creates.

In a clinical trial, eighteen volunteers took 1000 mg vitamin C per day for three months. The researchers also exposed the skin to damaging ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation. After three months of taking the dietary supplement, the researchers discovered that the antioxidant significantly protected the skin from sun damage and supported the health of the volunteer’s DNA.²⁴

Another study looked at the ability of two different doses of vitamin C—100 and 180 mg/day—to quench free radicals in the skin. The results showed that the higher the dose, the greater the free-radical scavenging activity was, with 180 mg/day of vitamin C increasing the free-radical scavenging activity in the skin by 37%.²⁵ And another study showed benefit when taking 3000 mg/day of vitamin C.²⁶

What You Can Do

To support skin health, take the following NBI products:

• Belly Rescue: This probiotic and prebiotic blend contains the species of healthy gut bacteria used in clinical trials and shown to promote healthy skin, digestion and mood; manufacture antioxidants, short-chain fatty acids and other nutrients for intestinal and systemic health; and support healthy inflammation promote healing of leaky gut.

• Collagen: To promote collagen production, skin elasticity and hydration and the reduction of visible lines and wrinkles, take NBI’s Collagen dietary supplement. Our collagen powder matches or exceeds the amount of collagen used in clinical trials for bone, joint and skin health. It provides 10 grams of non-GMO, unflavored, hydrolyzed Types I and III collagen per serving so it mixes well with coffee, tea and smoothies.

• Vitamin C 1000: Since your body doesn’t manufacture its own vitamin C, the only way to get it is through diet and dietary supplements. Unfortunately, about one-third of Americans don’t get enough, which is one of the reasons why taking a Vitamin C dietary supplement is so essential. NBI’s Vitamin C provides 1000 mg from rose hips and acerola fruit extract. Then we added citrus bioflavonoids from oranges for additional antioxidant support.

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