Give Your Hair, Skin & Nail Health A Boost
Our main goal here at Cronometer is to help our users live happier, healthier lives. For many, having a healthy exterior is an equally large factor in their happiness as the interior is. If you can relate, here are some micronutrients that you may want to keep an eye on to boost the vitality of your hair, skin and nails.
Vitamin D
You’ll probably know that your body can make vitamin D when your skin is exposed to sunlight, but what many may not know is how useful it can be for improving the health of your hair, skin and nails!
Vitamin D helps stimulate hair follicles to grow which can give you a fuller, thicker head of hair. Conversely, those who aren’t getting enough vitamin D may show signs of deficiency through hair loss.
Vitamin D decreases inflammation which can aid with skin conditions like acne and chronic dryness. It also helps improve cellular turnover and premature aging.
Vitamin E
This antioxidant is a powerhouse for our skin health. It works hard to fight the free-radicals that cause premature aging, dryness and damage from sun exposure.
Vitamin E also supports a healthy scalp, which is the foundation for healthy hair. It does this by maintaining moisture and preventing dryness, which leads your sebaceous glands to start overworking, causing an overproduction of oil, which can plug hair follicles and stunt growth.
One of the best places to source vitamin E from your diet is nuts and seeds. Almonds, sunflower seeds and pine nuts are all terrific sources of vitamin E.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is responsible for creating and maintaining collagen. It also strengthens your blood vessels to give your skin elasticity and durability.
Because it is an antioxidant, it also fights free radicals which are responsible for aging. C helps ward off wrinkles, age spots and dryness from things like sun exposure. Vitamin C is water soluble which means our body doesn’t store or accumulate it so it’s important to make sure you’re reaching your recommended target on the daily.
Citrus, cantaloupe or tomatoes are all good sources of vitamin C.
Zinc
Zinc can help protect the skin against sun damage. It also has antimicrobial effects, which means that it can help things like bacterial forms of acne.
Additionally, zinc is essential for the development of hair follicles and hair regeneration which means it’ll help your locks grow long and strong. If you happen to notice that you’re losing more hair than normal it might be worth looking at your zinc consumption.
Collagen
Collagen is the most abundant protein in our bodies and helps make up the connective tissues that form ligaments, tendons, muscles and skin. It’s required to maintain the structure of your skin and bones.
One of the biggest draws of collagen is for it’s skin benefits – helping to prevent dryness and the formation of wrinkles by maintaining moisture and elasticity. Learn all about collagen.
How Cronometer Can Help
If you’re logging all of your food into your Cronometer account, you can check on your intake of all of the above micronutrients on your Daily Report or your Nutrition Report. Not sure how to do this? Read our blog on how to leverage reports.
If you’re a Gold subscriber, you have the ability to create Custom Biometrics which you can leverage to track general skin health or the severity of skin conditions like acne or eczema. You can then plot these Custom Biometrics on a Custom Chart against certain nutrients (like vitamin E) to see if increasing or decreasing your intake has any effect.
Also as a Gold subscriber, you’ll have access to our Antioxidant Nutrition Score which gives you a quick glance at how well you’re hitting your targets for all of the antioxidants grouped together, including vitamins E, C and Zinc.
