Are you nourishing your hair, skin, and nails?
If not, maybe you should be. These parts of our bodies say a lot about our health — both to ourselves and to others! Far from being mere superficialities, the appearance of our hair, skin, and nails says a lot about what going on under the hood.
In this article you will learn how to achieve optimal skin health by introducing organ meats to your diet.
It’s for these reasons that we’ll be doing a three-part series completely dedicated to the topic. Part 2 (this article) will cover skin, while part 1 covered hair and part 3 will cover nails.
- Part 1: Hair
- Part 2: Skin
- Part 3: Nails
While just getting healthier in general will have a good effect on hair/skin/nails, we can get a little more specific than that. Certain nutrients are virtually tailor-made to improve your hair health. Keep reading to learn more about these nutrients — and their best sources.
- Skin health: why it’s more than just skin deep
- Beef organs for glowing skin
- Beef organs for anti-ageing
- Beef organs for acne
- Animal-based skincare
Skin health: why it’s more than just skin deep
It’s been said many times that beauty is more than just skin deep. In a pleasantly non- materialist way, that’s probably true.
Yet it’s also true that the appearance of one’s skin provides a glimpse into their inner, systemic health. Skin problems like acne, psoriasis, or rosacea are a sign that something is ‘off’ when it comes to the inflammatory and/or immune status within. [1]
Even what we’ve taken for normal skin ageing — the slow but progressive development of fine lines, age spots, and wrinkles — may not be quite as inevitable as you’d think if internal health is addressed.
Why not? Because, despite the fact that most people aren’t doing it quite right, the skin is surprisingly easy to nourish.
The cause of skin problems
Before going into how to set yourself up for smooth, glowy skin, let’s take a look at why skin problems even arise in the first place.
The primary culprit is the very same stress hormone we mentioned in part 1 of this series: cortisol. As hormonal researcher Danny Roddy explains, “normally when a stressor is encountered, cortisol is secreted and shortly after cleared from the blood, operating on the principle of negative feedback, executed at the hypothalamus.” [2]
Unfortunately, the stressors of life can make this once-transient process far too chronic. As Roddy goes on to explain, “in old age this negative feedback mechanism becomes less effective, and allows cortisol to persist in the blood longer, presumably by damaging the cortisol ‘receptors’ in the hypothalamus.”
While chronically elevated cortisol can lead to all sorts of unfavourable things, one of its first effects is also one of its most obvious: it can eat away at your skin. Cortisol is what’s called a catabolic hormone that kicks in when normal energy production hormones fail. Instead of actually producing energy, cortisol scavenges energy from soft tissues like the skin and hair.
In Roddy’s words, “cortisol in excess is a destructive hormone, causing conditions as diverse as skin ageing and muscle wasting to diabetes and cancer. Part of the way cortisol does this is by interfering with the proper delivery, use, and storage of glucose.
How to shut down skin ageing
Shutting down skin ageing requires two things. The first relates to what we’ve been talking about — to have truly good skin, you’ll need to shut down cortisol by keeping stress in check.
The second thing required for good skin health is skin-specific nutrition. Some substances provide the building blocks for the skin (think collagen and healthy fats), while others speed the conversion of these building blocks into their finished product (think vitamin C and vitamin A). [3][4]
Beef organs for glowing skin
Many of the nutrients needed to achieve that youthful glow can be found in beef organs. Beef liver alone is rich in B vitamins, vitamin E, preformed vitamin A, zinc, and copper — all nutrients that are truly essential for optimal skin health. Beef liver’s vitamin E content serves as a powerful antioxidant that may reduce your risks of sunlight-related skin ageing. [5]
The collagen found in some beef organs and beef bones may benefit your skin, too. Recent studies show that collagen supplementation can stimulate the fibroblast cells found throughout your connective tissues. In turn, these specialized cells can help build the structural matrix (i.e, collagen!) that helps structure healthy skin. [6]
Beef organs for anti-ageing
Other beef organs may have an anti-ageing effect on the skin, too. Beef spleen is known to contain peptides that increase circulation, for example, and good circulation is practically a prerequisite for good skin. (This is part of the reason why niacin and niacinamide-based skincare products are so popular — they increase circulation!) [7]
Beef organs for acne
Though it might sound too good to be true, some people find that regularly eating beef organs or organ meat supplements reduces their acne. It’s likely that the vitamin A in beef organs is responsible for this shift. [8] Adopting an animal-based keto diet may also help with acne, since such a diet can reduce inflammation and calm the overactive immune system.
Animal-based skincare
As great as beef organs’ skin-specific effects may be, they’re really just the start. It turns out that a wide variety of animal products double as worthy skincare products. Beef tallow, for example, makes a perfect skin moisturizer. [9] Its stearic acid can optimize the skin’s turnover/metabolism, and its overall fatty acid composition closely matches that of the human skin!
To summarize, don’t be afraid to make the most of the natural world in your quest for better skin. We think you’ll find making the jump to animal-based skincare more than worth it.
