You shouldn't have to be an ace in chemistry to understand why your skin ages prematurely. Peptides? Electrons? Free radicals? You just want to free your skin from looking old and worn out! Lots of companies throw around fancy words to try to get you to buy their products, which are usually concoctions of lots of artificial chemicals. Since it is difficult to understand what is really going on with your face, you take their word for it and try their products. Actually, you've probably tried everything from orange juice to cereal, that supposedly has antioxidants, hoping and trusting that it will reverse the signs of aging.

The science behind aging is not so difficult to understand if we explain it in a simpler language. When your skin starts to look 'aged', it's usually due to a combination of factors. Pollution in the environment, and damage from the sun's rays has a lot to do with it. Besides this, the other reason your skin ages is due to the fact that when your body uses oxygen, some of your atoms lose electrons and become 'unstable'. The scientific name of these cells with less electrons is called 'free radicals.' Free radicals alter our DNA and cause destruction in the body, resulting in more diseased and dead cells. Worst of all, in order to stabilize themselves, they try to take electrons from the natural proteins in our skin. This, as you can imagine, starts a snowball effect of premature aging problems in our skin, because as free radicals take electrons from other cells, they leave those cells with fewer electrons also!

As you can imagine, our bodies are not helpless against these destructive cells. There are enzymes in the body which try to neutralize these free radicals. But, according to scientific studies, the principal solution to get rid of these cells is by special chemicals called 'antioxidants', which are for the most part found in our diet and through external supplements. Up until a short time ago, there wasn't much public knowledge about antioxidants, other than having heard the name around somewhere. However, the scientific community has begun to unveil some of the exciting breakthroughs about this topic, and the media has begun to get in on the action and alert the general population. Athletes have been especially interested in this information, due to the prospects of better performance.

Natural Ingredient helps Win the Fight against Premature Aging

Antioxidants work by sharing an extra electron that they have with the free radicals. Because they improve the free radicals, and don't just get rid of them, the unnecessary deaths of the damaged cells are avoided. The antioxidants then help the cells by neutralizing external forces (such as damage from the sun, pollution, etc) and internal factors (such as stress, emotions, metabolism, and the presence of excess oxygen). What better way to keep your skin looking younger-than-ever than to give it these antioxidants that it so desperately needs? There are a variety of ways to get antioxidants. For example, a good idea would be to eat foods rich in vitamin C, and drink lots of green tea. Fruits and vegetables that have beta carotene (like carrots, peaches, spinach, etc), are also wondeful sources. One recommendation is that you include these things in your diet to rejuvenate your skin. However, there is also the other problem we talked about, which is the damage that harmful UV rays do to your skin. Sadly, we live in a world with a thinner and thinner ozone layer, and therefore greater and greater danger to our skin.

Realizing the amazing properties of these antioxidants, scientists have recently started to create natural products using antioxidants that you can apply as a face cream, which will neutralize your free radicals and protect your skin against UV rays that cause skin damage. They even contain a special ingredient that 'reminds' your damaged and abused skin cells how to behave like normal healthy skin again! This has been such an incredible breakthrough for the medical and scientific communities. So, to summarize, if your skin is aging prematurely, all is not lost. Remember effective ways to keep your skin soft, young and rejuvenated: eat lots of vitamins, drink green tea, and try using skin care products full of antioxidants to insure your body is getting all the help it needs to revive damaged cells. If you really make the effort to do this, you should start to notice a difference in your skin before you know it!