Super-foods that double up as 'summer skin masques'

With the summer comes stress of skin tanning, burns, pigmentation and other sun and air conditioner related damages, but this season, eat your way towards a healthy skin with these super-foods.

The high UV index causes photo-damage, while the hot winds and long exposure to air-conditioning units causes dehydration of the skin. This combination can be disastrous for the skin and can have long lasting effects.

Sirisha Singh, the founding member and Medical Director of The Skin Center, lists a few 'super-foods' which when consumed, have beneficial effects on the skin and can make the skin glow, give it a soft texture and also reduce the signs of ageing.

Singh noted that fruits and vegetables which are yellow-orange in colour like carrots and pumpkins and green coloured vegetables like spinach are very rich in beta carotene, which is pro vitamin A and had been shown to reduce the signs of UV damage on the skin and signs of photo-ageing like fine lines and wrinkles on the skin.

She added that tomatoes, papayas and watermelons (found abundantly in the summer season) are rich sources of the anti-oxidant lycopene, while green tea has a high amount of catechins and proanthocyanidins which have significant anti-oxidant action.

As per Singh, pomegranates are a rich source of dietary fibre and an anti-oxidant called punicalagin, which helps reduce free radical damage and hence slows down the ageing process.

She continued that red wine is rich in resavertrol, which works as a powerful anti-oxidant and slows down the ageing process and cod is very rich in selenium, which is required for production of glutathione in the body. Glutathione works as an anti-oxidant and also prevents pigmentation of the skin.