The Key To Balanced Healthy Skin Is Bacteria
It has been all in the news for the last several years, you can see it on the shelves at the drug store, and of course, anytime a female, take antibiotics you are told to eat yogurt to help keep the good bacteria in balance with the bad bacteria. Good bacteria that balance out the bad bacteria is in its simplest terms what makes up a microbiome. A more technical explanation of a microbiome is a community of living microorganisms. The most talked about the microbiome of late refers to the one in the gut. A microbiome making a name for itself on the science research front is the skin microbiome. Both operate differently but are interconnected.
When the gut is content and healthy, the microbiome of the skin will do the same.
The Role Of Skin
Skin is the largest organ of the human body. The surface of the skin is the ultimate protection for the body and is continually exposed to external environmental pollutants. The skin protects the body from harmful environmental factors including radiation and free radicals, as well as from harmful chemicals and immune system responses. Opposite many organs in the body with one sole function, the skin performs various functions all to the benefit of the body. Its main function is to be a barrier that prevents water and extracellular fluid loss. This is accomplished by maintaining a constant body temperature and allowing perspiration to help regulate that temperature. It prevents infections and toxic substances from entering the internal body as well.
A lesser-known role the skin plays in protecting the body is its ability to support a skin microbiome.
This microbiome begins immediately after birth. Newborns once out of the womb, are exposed to maternal and other post-natal environmental factors. The skin of the baby immediately becomes populated with various microorganisms that include bacteria, viruses, and even fungi. These play an integral role in building and boosting the immune system of a newborn. The understanding of many of these things goes back to high school biology. The things living in microbiomes on the skin offer what we learned as a symbiotic relationship. They survive on the skin's surface and provide vital protection against pathogens and agents that age the skin.
The skin biome helps to regulate the function of the skin barrier by protecting it from pathogens, toxins, and other skin-damaging radicals. An imbalanced skin biome with bad bacteria overrunning the good bacteria is linked to acne, eczema, psoriasis, and other skin problems. With new findings to support that the skin microbiome impacts the skin's appearance, it is no surprise that microbiome skincare has become a hot topic and starting to fill the shelves of skincare aisles.
So what does yogurt have to do with my skin?
Now skin experts and scientists are also connecting the presence of good bacteria on the skin as a key to healthy skin. They affect the gut's microbiome when consumed as a supplement or in meals high in probiotics, such as yogurt, by introducing more good bacteria to counteract the bad bacteria.
There is a delicate balance between skin health and a healthy skin biome. In the 80s and 90s, many teenage girls worked to clean and clear their skin with medicated pads soaked with alcohol The alcohol stripped and killed the very parts of the skin that offered protection and vitality.
The gut-skin axis is the term attributed to the relationship between the skin biome and the gut biome. This interconnection means that imbalances in the gut can affect the health and appearance of the skin.
Some Science Behind The Gut And Skin Axis.
Probiotics are live microorganisms that influence the body's microbiota
Prebiotics come from high-fiber foods and encourage the growth of probiotic bacteria
Prebiotics work to keep the good bacteria in the gut-growing
Probiotics feed on prebiotics and crate postbioticsk
Postbioitcs outside the body can come from fermented foods
Keeping a healthy balance of the pre and probiotics will encourage and promote gut health and will in turn keep your skin biome healthy which in turn yields healthy skin more resistant to aging due to environmental factors. Another way to keep the skin biome in good standing is to incorporate things into the skin routine that encourage the good bacteria on the skin to proliferate. Pharmacology Ph.D. Dr. Elsa Jungman, shares that you have to have probiotics on the skin to benefit the skin biome. Vitamin C and aloe vera extract have positive results and support a healthy skin biome.
The key to a healthy skin microbiome is all about balance
A healthy balanced gut will show itself in the skin. Include foods in your dies that contain prebiotics like oats and legumes as well as probiotic foods like yogurt. For your skin, use products that will not throw off the natural balance of your skin biome. Phil’s Better’s products are natural and 100% green. With natural and green products you can rest easy knowing that your skincare will not damage the delicate balance of good and bad bacteria in your skin biome.
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