Archive for November, 2008
The K Vitamin
The K vitamin is essential for the blood to clot to repair injuries. Whenever a person has a bleeding wound, it is the K vitamin that is present in the blood that stops the bleeding and enables most minor cuts to heal quickly.
There are three different forms of the K vitamin. The first variant of the K vitamin is vitamin K1, also known as phylloquinone. This is the form of the K vitamin that is found in types of plant foods. Vitamin K found in plant foods. The second form of the K vitamin is the vitamin K2, or menaquinone. This type of the K vitamin is formed by friendly bacteria in the intestines. Thirdly, there is vitamin K3 which is also known as menadione and is actually an artificial form of the K vitamin. All three of these types of K vitamin end up in the liver where it is used to create the blood clotting substances.
The best natural sources of the K vitamin are green leafy vegetables, such as spinach. However, because the friendly bacteria in the intestine makes one of the forms of the K vitamin it is extremely rare for a person to have a deficiency of the K vitamin and so K vitamin supplements are not needed by the majority of people.
Apart from the main function of helping blood to clot, the K vitamin, specifically the Vitamin K1, has an important part to play in the bone building process. This K vitamin is required to retain the calcium in the bones and redistribute it to where it is needed.
Although a K vitamin deficiency is relatively rare there are certain groups of people who may suffer from it. Newborn babies may not have enough of the K vitamin as they have insufficient bacteria in their intestines to produce it. The majority of newborn babies in developed countries are therefore given a K vitamin injection to tide them over until the natural process takes over. That is the only time that a K vitamin supplement will be taken by most people throughout their lives. However, an extended course of antibiotics may lead to a K vitamin deficiency due to the fact that the antibiotics kill the intestinal bacteria as well as the ones that they are being taken to cure. Again, a K vitamin supplement may be given if the course of antibiotics has to continue for a long period of time.
Tags: K Vitamin
Vitamin C skin care – The challenge
Vitamin C is often regarded as a wrinkle fighter or an anti-aging agent. The main objective of ‘Vitamin C skin care’, in scientific terms, is to increase the synthesis of collagen (a structural protein that is found in skin). The additional benefit of ‘Vitamin C skin care’ is related to its capability of countering free radicals which cause damage to the skin.
Vitamin C skin care, however, faces a major challenge today. This is related to the oxidation tendency of Vitamin C skin care products. On coming in contact with any oxidising agent (e.g. air), the Vitamin C in the Vitamin C skin care products, gets oxidised; thus making the Vitamin C skin care product useless (in fact counter-effective). The oxidised Vitamin C imparts a yellowish-brown colour to the Vitamin C skin care product. This is something that you need to check before buying a Vitamin C skin care product. Even after you buy a Vitamin C skin care product, you need to store it properly and keep checking that it’s still good to use (i.e. it hasn’t attained a yellowish-brown texture).
The manufacturers of Vitamin C skin care products have tried to deal with this (oxidation) problem in multiple ways (and research on Vitamin C skin care products is on the top of their list). One such method of retaining effectiveness of Vitamin C skin care products for a long term is to keep a high concentration (say 10%) of Vitamin C. However, this makes the Vitamin C skin care products even more expensive. The Vitamin C skin care products are already pretty inexpensive and making them even more expensive will throw the product manufacturers out of business. The other way is to use Vitamin C derivatives (like ascorbyl palmitate and magnesium ascorbyl phosphate). These are not only more stable but also inexpensive. Even though the derivatives based products are not as effective as the Vitamin C skin care products, their stability against oxidation is a very desirable feature that makes them very attractive. Moreover, these are known to be less irritating too.
Talking of effectiveness of Vitamin C skin care products, it’s important to mention that not everyone responds to Vitamin C treatments. So it’s not a magic potion in any way. If you don’t see a noticeable difference in your skin, it might be because of your skin not responding to Vitamin C treatment (and the Vitamin C skin care products might not be at fault, at all).
As more research goes on, one can only keep our fingers crossed and wait for a complete solution to the challenges faced by ‘Vitamin C skin care’ today.
Which is the best skin care product?
There is really nothing like a best skin care product. There really can’t be anything like ‘The best skin care product’, because skin care products work differently for different people (based on the skin type to some extent). A product that is the ‘best skin care product’ for one person might end up being the worst for another person. So, a more logical question to ask would be ‘What is the best skin care product for my type of skin?’. However, this still is not completely logical. We tend to segregate people into 4 groups based on their skin types – i.e. dry skin, oily skin, normal skin and sensitive skin. However, this classification is just too broad to be used definitively in determining the best skin care product. We can say ‘best skin care product for a dry skin’ or ‘best skin care product for an oily skin’ are better statements than just ‘best skin care product’. But really, that is what it is – ‘better’; still not accurate.
So, it really comes to rephrasing the question to – ‘What is the best skin care product for me’. Yes, this is exactly the question that you should be asking, and unfortunately there is no easy answer for this. Arriving at the best skin care product for self will need some effort on your part.
First of all, you need to understand how the skin care products work. This is simple. You can consider all skin care products to be composed of 2 types of ingredients – Active and inactive. The active ingredients are the ones that actually work on your skin. The inactive ones just help in delivering these active ingredients to your skin. Both the ingredients need to work for your skin, in order for the product to be effective (and move on to become the best skin care product for you).
Besides the ingredients, the way you apply your skin care products is equally important. In fact, this is even more important. If you do not know how to apply skin care products, you might forever be hunting for the best skin care product for yourself, when that has already passed you. Moreover, it’s also important to decide on the frequency of application (of the skin care product). The environmental factors – temperature, humidity and pollution level, also affect the selection of best skin care product. Here are a few rules that you could use to ensure that your best skin care product is really the best for you:
* Cleanse your skin before applying that best skin care product.
* Use a makeup remover instead of plain water and remove your makeup before going to bed.
* The effectiveness of active ingredients is reduced when applied over another product e.g. over moisturiser. So apply that best skin care product first and then apply a bit of moisturizer if needed.
* Apply the products on moist and warm skin.
* You will have to experiment with a few products before you arrive at the one that is the best skin care product for you.
* Do not exfoliate too much or too hard.
* Vary your skin care routine as per the seasons (winter/summer etc), changes in environmental factors and changes in your skin type
Note that the best skin care product cannot be determined overnight. It’s only through experiment (and awareness) that you can find the ‘Best skin care product’.
Tags: best skin care product