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Skincare, haircare, make-up and cosmetic treatment are all options when it comes to looking younger, but what about nutrition? Michael Stewart, registered nutritional therapist at Get A Drip, the UK’s leading vitamin drip, spoke exclusively to Express.co.uk about his favourite supplements and their anti-ageing properties.
The skin inevitably deteriorates over time due to various factors including free radicals, UV damage, pro-inflammatory diet and stress.
But there are certain steps we can make to protect our skin and to keep it in good condition, according to the expert.
Michael emphasised the importance of getting all our nutrients and vitamins “covered”, however he warned that most of us are not doing this.
He said: “Something like 90 percent of the population are deficient in at least one vitamin. And I think there’s about 50 percent deficient in two or more.”
In addition to a healthy diet – the expert emphasised that nothing can replace good, nutritious food – Michael recommended women stock up on supplements, which are essentially a “concentrated food source of the nutrients you need”.
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“Nutrients are like cogs in the machine,” he explained, “if anything is missing, nothing works properly”.
Michael advised that mature ladies go for a high-quality multivitamin containing all the B vitamins, vitamin E, vitamin D, vitamin C, Beta-carotenes, which protect against UV, iodines and zinc.
The expert stated: “Vitamin C is probably my favourite, it’s really, really important.
“Your skin is obviously made up of a number of different sort of structures, but collagen is probably the most well known.
“And collagen gives it strength and stability and it protects against damage, thinning, wrinkling and so on.
“Vitamin C is vital for the production of collagen, which is why if you’re deficient you get scurvy, your teeth fall out and your skin falls apart – all of those nasty things.”
While most people are not fully deficient, many of us are “insufficient” in vitamin C, meaning that although our teeth are not falling out, our gums may become inflamed.
The expert also strongly recommends vitamin D and vitamin K2.
Of course, every individual is different so Michael recommends that women over 40 have a blood test from their doctor to find a “basic benchmark” of the supplements they need.
As for where women can buy these supplements, Michael said to avoid anywhere that does “massive sales” as these are likely to be “lower quality or lower dosage”.
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Specialised companies and health food shops also usually stock supplements, but the best thing to do would be to speak to a nutritional therapist.
It’s important to seek expert advice so as to ensure you do not take too much of something you do not need, or take one supplement without taking other necessary ones to go with it.
For those who want a quicker fix than supplements, vitamin drips go straight into the bloodstream rather than being digested.
Michael explained the difference between a nutrient-rich diet, supplements and vitamin drips.
He said: “Diet is the foundation. It’s slow, it’s steady, it will get you there eventually. Supplements speed that up and drips just kind of bypass the whole need to wait a month or two to get that stuff in.
“The body still has to fix stuff, but they get you a little bit of a boost.
“Some of it can go into storage, some of it is used straight away, but it’s just a really nice quick way of boosting the levels of things that may be quite low at that time.”
Get A Drip’s Anti-Ageing Drip is described as a “powerful combination of B Vitamins, Glutathione and Amino Acids for anti-ageing effects”.
Michael described Glutathione as a “really powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory” which helps “mop up damage” from UV rays, pollution and toxicity.
While it’s fabulous for the body according to the expert, Glutathione “tastes foul and smells like rotten eggs” so is much more palatable in a drip than as a supplement.
Michael Stewart is a registered nutritional therapist at Get A Drip, the UK’s leading vitamin drip provider.
