Beauty Skin Problems

"The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." Voltaire

Skin is the largest organ in the human body, yet it's often miserably taken for granted. People pamper their hearts and agonize over their waistlines, but their skin can get totally overlooked. Sure, they might spread a little lotion on dry elbows from time to time, or dab a bit of sunscreen on untanned noses before hitting the beach, but that's often the extent of many skin-care regimes beyond a few daily scrubs with the washcloth.

With people all over the globe spending billions of dollars on skin-care products every year, you'd think cosmetics companies had replicated the fountain of youth in the laboratory. In fact, skin creams have gotten more and more expensive and less and less based on real science. According to most experts who aren't hawking half-ounce jars of $200 youth serum, the science behind skin care is simpler than most of us think.

As with most health benefits, it comes down to lifestyle, rather than how much you can afford to spend on products. The things you can do to beautify your skin are remarkably similar to what you can do to strengthen your heart, control your weight, lift your mood and live longer and better: Get regular exercise, sleep enough and eat well. In the next chapters we’ll discuss what you want to throw in your shopping cart to improve your skin, why those foods work on traits like smoothness and tone, and whether skin-healthy foods are, in fact, different from the foods you'd eat to promote overall health.