My earliest memories of Vitamin C involve barely credible TV commercials from the 90s involving Sunny Delight. There was always a mom smugly proud that her children didn’t know they were getting a “100% serving of vitamin C” alongside 2% fruit juice and 98% corn syrup. Ah, the 90s. Vitamin C has long been known to be a potent antioxidant that fights free radicals that cause inflammation and disease. All I knew about this vitamin was that it packed a powerful punch against the common cold.
As my knowledge of vitamins started to expand beyond the sugary colored drinks of childhood, I was surprised to discover that aside from the aiding that shadowy disease-fighting network in your body known as the Immune System, it actually resides in your skin and determines the quality of your collagen and elastic production! Vitamin C is critical for the synthesis of collagen, which is not only great for your skin but is one of the building blocks for blood vessels, tendons, ligaments, and bone. Moreover, Vitamin C helps with pigmentation and acts as a natural sunscreen.
How in the world does something I had always associated with atomic orange sugar-water have such a far reaching influence on your health and youthfulness?
Remember our last biology lesson involving the skin? Well let’s go back to that for a moment. Vitamin C is found both in the epidermis and the dermis of the skin, with the epidermis having a higher concentration.There it sits, quietly and unrecognized for its importance, spinning out the very thing sought most by those longing for youthfulness—collagen.
Unfortunately (you knew this was coming), aging causes a decline in the production of Vitamin C in both the epidermis and dermis. This means you have to give your skin some extra Vitamin C love. Fortunately, there are a few scientifically proven ways to do so and I will walk you through them in the next part of this series! If this conversation about Vitamin C and its role in healthy skin has been as much of a revelation to you as it had been to me, you will not want to miss what’s next!