Original title: The Roles of Vitamin C in Skin Health
Skin has an outer layer that blocks environmental harm and an inner layer that gives it strength and elasticity. Vitamin C supports collagen, a protein that helps skin stay strong, and helps protect against damage caused by ultraviolet light. This review looks at studies of vitamin C taken in the diet and applied to the skin. It finds that evidence is limited on whether topical products help, and considers which skin properties might benefit from better dietary intake.
Imagine packing a bag for a day outside. You want to protect what is inside, but you also need the right supplies to keep the bag strong. It is hard to know whether adding something to the outside helps more than bringing it along from the start. In this paper, the bag’s outer and inner parts stand for skin’s layers, and the two ways of adding vitamin C stand for applying it or getting it through food.
People choose between getting vitamin C through food and applying it to their skin, often hoping to support skin strength or protect against sun damage. This review compares what research says about those routes and points out where the evidence is too limited to guide confident choices.
The review describes the evidence as limited and says the efficacy of topical vitamin C, compared with optimising dietary intake, is poorly understood. It does not establish which approach is more effective or prove which skin properties benefit from improved dietary intake.
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The Roles of Vitamin C in Skin Health — Juliet M. Pullar, Anitra C. Carr, Margreet C.M. Vissers — Nutrients — doi:10.3390/nu9080866
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.