LONGECITY

I am really interested in the supplements people here swear by for great youthful skin. I'd love to have a discussion about what supplements you really feel help keep the skin looking great as we age (full disclosure I am almost 40!). I am happy for the discussion to touch on nutrition and if people have any studies to link to that would be great.

For my own part I noticed a nice boost to my skin when I started taking l-lysine 1000mg although that may be due to my being vegetarian.

Would love to hear what you all think!

Ok so to reply to my own topic, I have just skimmed my large collection of skincare books including titles by Dr Perricone, Dr Maurd, Dr Lancer, Dr Jannette Graf, Leslie Kenton and Nigma Talib and more. From these I have tried to extract the most frequently recommended supplements to improve skin health.

So the most recommened supplements were:


Antioxidents in general(see below)*

Omega 3 Oils
Vitamin D3
B-Complex (High Strength)
Lycopene
Calcium
Selenium
Copper
Zinc
Magnesium

* Antioxidents where the most recommened supplement when grouped together including: Vitamins A, C & E. Cartinoids, Lycopene, Bioflavinoids, Zeaxanthin, Quescitin, Lutin, Pynocgenol, Beta carotebe, anthocyanins etc

In addition to these most frequently recommened supplements there were some that were touted in more than one book as must have antiaging supplements:

Carnosine - to prevent glycation
MSM
Nictinamide
Alpha Lipoic Acid
Co-Enzyme Q10
Probiotics

Every single book also recommended:

- a varied wholefood diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.
-Lots of water
-Enough Sleep each night
-that stress be dealt with and avoided e.g. yoga, meditation etc
- regular exercise


Looking at the above information it looks like a good basic regimen might be something like a good quality multivitamin and mineral supplement,an Antioxident formula, B-Complex, Omega Oil supplement (especially omega 3) and Vitamin D3 supplement. Then you might pick and choose from add on supplements such as MSM, Alpha Lipoic Acid and Co-Enzyme Q10 etc or any others you would like to try? Perhaps it is worth systematically trying them to see what makes a difference and keeping notes?

There are other things to consider like hormone health but some multivitamins are specially formulated for women (or men) so support hormones.

Note:
Green Tea was mentioned in a lot of the books but if you like tea drinking a couple of cups a day would probably be enough as too much green tea extract can be toxic I believe.

Let me know what you guys think!

I will just chime in and say that by chance I found MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) to be very good for the skin. You can take the supplement or use the skin cream. If you use the skin cream you need to get a cream that has a high MSM content meaning MSM is listed as one of the first ingredients in the list. 

Hi Boxing Guy, thanks for replying. I never thought to use MSM in a topical treatment. I will need to take a look and see if it is available in the UK or if I can do a DIY to try it!

Young skin doesn't come from a pill.  Avoiding the sun, diet, exercise, sunscreen, and retin-a will do more for skin than any pill from a bottle.