Eating vitamin C boosts skin health more than topical creams

You've probably spent a fortune on vitamin C serums promising to reverse aging and brighten your complexion, but new research from the Journal of Investigative Dermatology suggests you might be better off eating your antioxidants instead. Researchers measured vitamin C levels in different skin layers and found that dermal cells (fibroblasts) contained seven times more vitamin C than epidermal cells, with the highest concentrations supporting collagen synthesis deep in the skin. When participants with low vitamin C status ate two kiwifruit daily for eight weeks (delivering about 250 mg of vitamin C), their skin ascorbate levels increased significantly, skin density improved by nearly 50%, and epidermal cell proliferation increased by 30%.

The study demonstrated that vitamin C travels from your bloodstream into your skin through active transport, with the epidermis particularly responsive to changes in plasma levels. This matches a large body of evidence on vitamin C's critical role in collagen production, and it reinforces what functional medicine practitioners have known for years: true skin health comes from within, not from a bottle on your bathroom counter.

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