9 Benefits Of Vitamin C For Skin, Hair & Weight Loss

Last updated on April 14th, 2019 at 07:27 am

If you’re not crazy about fruits and vegetables, then this article will definitely help you find the motivation to eat more of them. Because fruits and vegetables are our best sources of vitamin C. Vitamin C is an extremely important nutrient for us humans and has many health benefits that we often forget! Here are 9 benefits of vitamin C for skin, hair and weight loss!

Foods High In Vitamin C

The best way to get enough vitamin C or any essential nutrient is by eating a healthy diet. Some of the best sources of vitamin C are:

berries (strawberries, raspberries blueberries)
citrus fruits (lemons, oranges, grapefruit)
green leafy veggies like spinach & kale
cabbage, Brussel’s sprouts, broccoli
peppers
tomatoes

Research suggests higher dosages of isolated vitamin C, as found in supplements aren’t beneficial because vitamin C can become pro-oxidant instead of an antioxidant.

Too much vitamin C can also induce diarrhea or cause kidney stones. (though this is rare)

By taking a supplement you would also miss out on the synergistic health benefits that come from combining different foods and nutrients.

For example, vitamin C from fruits and vegetables is more powerful when combined with vitamin E from fatty foods like avocado, almonds or cooking oils.

How To Get Enough Vitamin C Every Day?

Some ways to add more vitamin C to your diet include:

drinking a smoothie in the morning
adding berries to your breakfast
drinking lemon water
having a salad with your lunch/dinner
or having fruits/veggetables as a snack.

What Is Vitamin C Good For?

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient that has multiple crucial functions in the human body. It’s important for your skin, hair, muscles, overall health, immune system, fat loss. You can read more about the major vitamin C functions inside the body in this post.

9 Benefits Of Vitamin C For Skin, Hair And Weight Loss

1. Vitamin C Fights Wrinkles

Vitamin C is very powerful against wrinkles for two reasons:

First of all: it is an antioxidant. In fact, it is the most common water-soluble antioxidant in the skin. It prevents damage from free radicals to collagen and other skin proteins like for example elastin.

Second: vitamin C also helps fibroblasts grow faster and make more collagen (1, 2). Fibroblasts are cells that produce extracellular matrix and are super important for firm skin.

So the consequences of all vitamin C actions lead to what?

Exactly, more healthy collagen. This means: smoother and younger looking skin with fewer wrinkles.

If you don’t believe me, believe a study that showed how middle-aged women who were consuming more vitamin C looked younger and had fewer wrinkles than women who didn’t get that much vitamin C. (3) Now that’s one reason to make us all eat more cabbage.

Related Article: What to eat for better skin, hair and nails

2. Vitamin C Helps Moisturize Your Skin

Vitamin C improves the barrier function of the skin. It helps build certain lipids in the skin surface and this way prevents dehydration of the skin and keeps moisture in it. (1)

3. It’s Important For Wound Healing

Nobody likes a wound that takes forever to heal (actually no normal person likes wounds at all) – it might get infected and it looks gross.

With enough vitamin C from your diet you’ll feel like Wolverine, because your wounds would be healing with the speed of light. (1)

4. Vitamin C Can Reduce Redness Of The Skin

Vitamin C is anti-inflammatory (8) and if applied directly to the skin it can reduce redness as for example with rosacea or acne.

Related Article: 2 Foods To Avoid If You Have Acne

5. As A Powerful Antioxidant, It Protects The Skin From Sun Damage

The sun these days is a huge beauty killer. It’s responsible for sunburn, allergies, age spots and wrinkles, it dries out the skin and even causes skin cancer. (1)

Vitamin C can fight the free radicals caused by sun exposure in the skin. However, it needs to get to the skin BEFORE they do.

Another problem is that sunlight decreases the amount of vitamin C in the skin by about 70% (2).

That’s why it’s important to get enough of this vitamin on a regular basis, many times throughout the day.

This explains why we need more fruits and vegetables during summer.

However, be warned that vitamin C is not enough to protect you from sun damage.

It might somewhat help fix the problem with free radicals, but it’s beyond its abilities to protect you from serious sun damage, if you don’t protect yourself. The best way to protect yourself from sun damage is to avoid the sun between 10am and 4pm, wear sunscreen and cover up.

Related Articles:

6. Vitamin C Can Lighten Your Skin And Possibly Remove Age Spots

Vitamin C can reduce the amount of melanin produced in the skin. Melanin is the guy responsible for skin and hair pigmentation. This means that vitamin C can give you lighter skin and possibly remove age spots. (1)

7. Vitamin C Can Prevent Hair Loss

The skin consists roughly of three layers – the epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous fat. The dermis of the skin is where all the hairy magic starts: the hair follicles are resting in this layer of the skin. The dermis is also the skin layer containing large amounts of collagen.

As we know, vitamin C is needed for collagen production in the dermis. If there’s not enough collagen due to vitamin C deficiency, the dermis becomes lose.

This can then lead to hair loss or brittle hair. That’s why vitamin C is also of importance for the appearance (and the presence) of hair. (4)

8. Helps Iron Absorption And Is Important For Stronger Nails And Hair

I guess many women know that it’s important to combine iron-rich foods with vitamin C, so we can absorb the nonheme iron found in plants.

Iron is very important for the maintenance of skin, nails and hair (1). If you don’t have enough iron in your body, which is common for women, you might have dry skin, brittle hair and nails or even be losing some hair.

So make sure to get your vitamin C, even if you’re not on a plant-based diet. It increases your chances of also getting enough iron and avoiding all those unattractive symptoms.

9. People Who Get More Vitamin C From Diet Lose On Average More Weight

Another talent of vitamin C is that it takes part in the synthesis of carnitine (5). Maybe you’ve heard of carnitine… It’s this small molecule that transports fatty acids across the mitochondrial membrane. Therefore it’s also vital for fat oxidation.

Which would mean that vitamin C is also involved in burning some serious fat by helping produce carnitine. In fact this has been proven in a few studies:

A lower level of vitamin C in the body is associated with higher degree of overweight. (6)
But not only that: it was shown that people who supply their diet with vitamin C lose more weight (7).

So if you’re trying to lose weight and more specifically fat, don’t be a stranger to vitamin C.

Related Article: 5 Morning Habits To Help You Lose Weight

The Best Way To Use Vitamin C for Skin

Due to its many benefits, Vitamin C is often used in creams and other cosmetics. The only issue is, that it’s very unstable and once it’s exposed to air, it doesn’t take long until it’s oxidized. (1)

Vitamin C is also water soluble and can’t penetrate the skin if it’s not bound to a specific vehicle. And I don’t have that vehicle (<- freaking out). So what are we going to do?

The best way to get your vitamin C is: eat your vitamin C.

It’s more stable and you don’t need a special vehicle to get it to the skin, the blood circulation will take care of that.

If you’re very talented you can of course make your own formulation for use on the skin. It would be even better if that formulation contains some vitamin E and ferrulic acid – they act synergistically and protect against UV light perfectly. (9)

FINAL THOUGHTS

Not bad, right? It’s definitely more than I could ever do. By giving vitamin C all these beauty talents nature again tells us – if you want to look good: eat your 8 servings of fruits and veggies!