Skin Protection And Antioxidants

Experts agree that the ability of antioxidants to quench, or capture, free radicals may protect us from certain diseases. But the jury's still out on whether antioxidants can postpone the visible signs of aging. There's a fair amount of experimental evidence in human cell cultures and animal studies that high doses of antioxidants may protect skin against sun damage - wrinkling and thinning skin. We also know that antioxidants play an important role in healing wounds. There's just not enough evidence to prove beyond a doubt that antioxidants can help delay skin damage.

One expert, through studying the effects of vitamin E and beta-carotene supplements on human skin exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light. She concluded that the antioxidants had "no demonstrable beneficial effect" on skin.

"In my view, the evidence that taking antioxidant vitamins by mouth or applying them to the skin has any impact on intrinsic aging or photoaging is exceedingly weak. It's one thing to show you can prevent oxidation in a laboratory dish and another to show you can make a detectable change in the appearance or function of skin over time.

However, another expert disagrees. "There's not yet absolute proof that taking antioxidant supplements delays aging of the skin, decreases the risk of cancer or boosts immunity. But I believe that they do."

And the results of some experiments are encouraging. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario, for example, showed that a certain form of vitamin E, tocopherol acetate, prevented sunburn in hairless mice when applied within eight hours of exposure. Their finding suggests that this type of vitamin E could be an effective after-sun treatment. But don't use the oil from supplements on your skin. Supplements contain vitamin E in its pure state, which quickly turns rancid when exposed to air. Worse, applying pure vitamin E to the skin can actually aggravate sun damage in some people.