Diet Treatment for Wrinkled Hands

When I was on a low fat, high fiber, vegetarian diet I had a lot of health issues, including fibromyalgia and prematurely wrinkled hands. My husband used to call my hands scary looking. I was in my thirties yet I had the hands of a much older woman. However, when I changed my diet to eat more meat and fat, my hands improved. I realize now that many vitamins are fat soluble, so I think that before I just wasn't getting enough fat to stay healthy and keep my skin smooth and supple.

Dietary Fat Helps with Absorption of Nutrients

in a paper from 2004, researchers found that study subjects absorbed more of certain nutrients with full fat salad dressings than with nonfat or reduced-fat dressings.

While many Americans obviously get too much fat in their diets, that doesn't mean that very low fat diets are necessarily healthy. I think people have to find a healthy balance at the point where they are not overweight and yet are getting enough fat to stay healthy and keep their skin looking good. There are a lot of papers on PubMed by plastic surgeons who use fat injections on people to plump out wrinkles. Well, I guess that is one way to get more fat in your body. But perhaps a less costly and more healthy way for some of those people getting fat injections would have been just to try eating a diet high in healthy fats.

I have a book on famous yogis, many who eat low fat, vegetarian diets. The one thing that struck me when I was flipping through the pictures in the book is that these people are supposed to be experts at health, yet many look very wrinkled and prematurely old. I know I started to look like that on a low fat, high fiber vegetarian diet, so I'm convinced that while that type of diet may work for some people, it is not for everyone, and it may not be the best diet to avoid wrinkled skin.

Research show that estrogen prevents skin aging and that fat in the diet raises estrogen levels. While diets high in fat resulting in high estrogen levels are linked to breast cancer, that doesn't mean that unusually low levels of estrogen are healthy, either. Besides wrinkled skin, low estrogen levels are linked to conditions such as osteoporosis and infertility. So with estrogen as with many other substances in the body, there is most likely an optimal middle range to be in to that keeps skin low in wrinkles and yet the body free of chronic diseases such as cancer.

Foods that reduce estrogen levels include whole grains, especially whole wheat, and cruciferous vegetables. Reducing estrogen levels may be good for people at risk for breast cancer, but these foods may not be the best choice for reducing wrinkles. I have a diet book where the author advocates a low fat, low protein diet with whole grains for weight loss, but in the cover photo she curiously has on a jacket with with unusually long sleeves that cover up her hands. I bet you any money she has the same "scary hand" syndrome I used to have from not having enough fat and estrogen producing foods in her diet.

She may be thin, but like the people in my yoga books on low fat diets, she doesn't have great skin. There is a lot more to being healthy than just body weight. Weight is just one component of heath. Other factors such as skin appearance also need to be considered. The person writing this diet book has a number of degrees and considers herself an expert on health, but ironically the reality is that she is not really very healthy looking herself.

Wrinkled Hands and Nutrition