Monday, September 19, 2011

Ingesting vegetables with phytosterols is beneficial for our skin

By Prandup Gonzalez


Phytosterols are a grouping of plant-derived sterols and stanols. According to the Nation's Institutes of Health (NIH) there are higher than 2 hundred phytosterols occurring in the plant kingdom found in such foods as nuts, vegetable oils and beans. They are phytochemicals that are like cholesterol in their function and structure. Cholesterol has gotten a bad rap in the current day's press. We have a tendency to think about cholesterol as something bad that we don't need in our system. But that couldn't be further from the actual facts. Cholesterol is a critical element of our bodies and we couldn't live without it. Cholesterol is the main structural part of cell surfaces, and when it comes to peel tissue cholesterol makes up about 25% of it. The quantity of cholesterol in a type of tissue establishes how permeable they are. The skin plays a twin role in our bodies in that it must keep the bad stuff out (like bacteria and viruses) but also permit the good stuff in (like fatty acids and sunlight). But plants do not generally have cholesterol in their structure. Instead they have phytosterols and these phytosterols play an analogous role in plant surfaces that cholesterol plays in ours. Phytosterols and skin are closely linked.

What does cholesterol do in our skin?



As well as making twenty five percent to the structural component of our skin, cholesterol has a crucial function in helping us to supply Vitamin D. We will get some of our vitamin D from foods like cod liver oil, egg yolks and herring, and it is no coincidence that these foods are also high in cholesterol. We will also manufacture Vitamin D in our bodies as a consequence of the interaction between the sun and the cholesterol in our skin. What happens is that the UV-B radiation from the sun hits our skin and turns 7-dehydrocholesterol (a kind of cholesterol) into Vitamin D3. Vitamin D is crucial to plenty of body's systems including:

1. Bone health and calcium metabolism
2. Cancer prevention
3. Immune system working
4. Blood sugar regulation

And so maybe you can see the conundrum- we need cholesterol and the sun in order to produce Vitamin D and be healthy, but the sun may also be dangerous to the skin. What to do?

What do phytosterols do for our skin?

In comes phytosterols to the rescue. According to analysis done in Germany, topical application of phytosterols really excited new collagen production in skin. This can help to counter the aging results of the sun. The phytosterols from plants basically penetrate into our skin and help our skin in pretty much the same way that cholesterol does. So why not just put cholesterol on skin? Unfortunately it isn't that simple becaues when cholesterol is applied directly to the skin, it often causes acne and redness. Fortunately applying phytoserols to the skin ends in the opposite and basically decreases swelling and increases pliability. The phytosterols help our skin's barrier mechanisms by reducing transepidermal water loss (TEWL). This helps keep the moisture and plumpness in our skin so it does not dry out. It could also help mend skin that has been damaged by sun burn or sun damage.




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