"How to Naturally Reduce Wrinkles with Food"
After my video on dates blew my mind, showing that
eating just a few dates can significantly reduce
the duration of labor during childbirth and
improve the progression of labor,
when I saw that there were randomized controlled trials
showing that peanut balls could decrease the length of labor,
I didn’t bat an eye, but no,
this is the peanut ball they were talking about.
But there are some surprising benefits attributed to nuts
in randomized controlled trials, like how about a study
on the effects of almond consumption on wrinkles?
Where’d they even come up with the idea?
Well, population studies have found that healthy diets
are associated with less facial wrinkles,
like a meat and junk- predominant eating pattern
was associated with more wrinkles, whereas
a fruit-predominant pattern was associated with fewer wrinkles.
In terms of single foods, yellow vegetables and soy
appear protective, but wine may make things worse.
Their thinking is that it might be the antioxidants
in healthy foods decreasing the oxidative stress load,
or the anti-inflammatory benefits, or protection from sun damage,
or improved collagen production, or better DNA repair.
I have videos on most of those topics.
The bottom line is that eating healthier
may reduce wrinkling, which could actually save lives
if people started eating healthier
to maintain a more youthful appearance and get all
the chronic disease benefits as a happy side effect.
Other studies have found the same thing, supporting recommendations
for more healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
Here’s another study that landed on
yellow vegetables, and greens as well.
In this study, a high intake of vegetables, beans, and olive oil
appeared to be protective against
spots of precancerous sun damage,
whereas a high intake of meat and dairy may make things worse.
Prunes, apples, and tea seemed particularly good,
but this was a cross-sectional study,
meaning just a snapshot in time.
Maybe people who eat more meat are out barbequing in the sun,
or people who eat more prunes just use more sunblock.
You can’t know for sure if foods actually affect wrinkling
until you... put them to the test—
but we had no such studies…until, now.
Why study almonds?
Because it was paid for by the Almond Board, of course.
The researchers didn’t know who was in the nut group, though,
and who was in the control group,
until they were looking at the results.
The nut group were given 2 ounces of nuts a day,
like two palmfuls of nuts, and the control group was instead
given nut-free snacks to eat instead
like nut-free granola bars or pretzels.
Before and after, they got high‐res facial photographs
to quantify facial wrinkle depth and severity using
a computer‐based photographic analysis and…boom,
the almond group had significantly decreased wrinkle severity
compared with the control group by the end of the 16-week study.
The paper concludes: “Our study demonstrates that
daily almond consumption may reduce wrinkle severity...”
Now, they used a relatively large dose, 2 ounces a day,
whereas you can get cardioprotective benefits
of nuts from even less than a half an ounce;
so, who knows, maybe they could have gotten away with using less.
Here’s the low-dose nut study they referenced,
showing a significant drop in LDL cholesterol within 6 weeks
eating just a few almonds a day—10 grams
which is just like 8 almonds a day.
That’s the nice thing about healthy foods,
they just have good side effects.
So, global disease prevention strategies might beneﬁt
from emphasizing that a healthy diet is also linked
to less facial wrinkling, and maybe vanity will help us
prevent a few heart attacks in the bargain.