By
Gillian B
Common
skin problems everyone faces could be a result of poor diet choices.
This is according to naturopathic doctor and skin care specialist
Nigma Talib
who recently wrote the book ‘Reverse The Signs Of Ageing: The
Revolutionary Inside-Out Plan To Glowing, Youthful Skin’. She treats
celebrities like Sienna Miller, makeup guru Charlotte Tilbury and has
been featured in Vanity Fair Magazine.
Talib
is convinced that what we eat and drink has a direct impact on our
faces. She recognizes and calls this collection of symptoms “dairy
face”, “wine face”, “sugar face”, and “gluten face”.
In her book, Talib states:
“The
second a patient walks into my clinic I can immediately tell the sort
of foods they tend to over-eat just by checking the way their face is
ageing. In fact, I often find myself reading random faces in the street.
I want to run up to strangers and tell them to cut milk out of their
diet or hold back on the pasta as it is so clear from their complexion
that their diet is doing them harm. For some people, just one
wheat-heavy day – cereal for breakfast, bread for lunch and pasta for
dinner – is enough to cause bloating and puffiness. A couple of glasses
of wine can trigger fine lines around the mouth and eyes, and – if you
are intolerant – a creamy sauce or a piece of cheese might trigger a
spotty break-out or dark circles under the eyes.”
Face
mapping has been commonly used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM),
but many medical professionals in the western world are not trained to
look for these more subtle signs. However, alternative practitioners
like Dr. Talib can tell when someone walks into their office with a
drinking problem because it is written all over their face.
What one eats or eats too much of determines how the face will age.
“Any
issues with the digestion of certain foods – perhaps you have an
unknown intolerance, or you eat more of a food than you can comfortably
digest – can cause a cascade of chemical and hormonal changes that speed
the ageing process internally and externally, with the results swiftly
showing on your face. Certain food groups appear to be particularly
damaging: gluten, dairy, sugar and alcohol. Each taxes the body in
specific ways, contributing to a cluster of ageing symptoms such as
spots, puffiness, changes in skin tone, premature fine lines and
wrinkles or sagging.” (Talib)
Where you age can indicate which organs are overburdened and even the root cause.
The
part of your face that is most affected – whether it is your forehead,
chin, cheeks or eyes – will depend on the part of the body being put
under most stress by the food group. Here is how Dr. Talib identifies
the what is going on with her clients:
Wine Face
Symptoms: Pronounced
lines or redness between the eyes, droopy eyelids, enlarged pores,
dehydrated skin with feathery lines across cheeks, flushed cheeks and
nose, deep nasolabial folds.
Although called wine face,
these signs can occur in anyone who tends to consume a high level of
alcohol weekly. Alcohol dehydrates the skin, affects the liver, and a
large amount of sugar found in alcohol tends to destroy skin elasticity.
How to Fix It: Take a break from alcohol for three weeks and then follow the 80/20 rule. Abstain 80% of the time and indulge 20% of the time.
Sugar Face
Symptoms: Lines
and wrinkles on the forehead, sagging under the eyes, gaunt look to the
face, painful pustular spots all over the face, thinning of the skin, a
grey/pasty white hue to the skin.
It is easy to get into
the habit of reaching for a sugary treat when our energy is low at 2
pm, it is an instant pick me up. However, what goes up, must come down.
When high blood sugar levels inevitably plummet, it creates a vicious
cycle that can leave you craving more and more.
As stated earlier,
sugar can destroy skin elasticity. According to face mapping, the
forehead is associated with the process of digestion, which is why
‘sugar face’ may manifest as blotches or wrinkles on the forehead.
It
can also throw off the delicate balance of our gut bacteria which
wreaks havoc not only on our face but digestion and the entire body.
How to Fix It:
Just stop eating processed sugar. One can gradually remove sugar from
their diet if cutting it off completely is too difficult. Even if you
just cut your intake in half and gradually wean yourself off sugar, you
will notice rapid improvements in your complexion. Try using more
natural options like fruit, honey or dates in place of refined white
sugar.
Not all sugar is bad for you. Check out what David Wolfe has to say!
Dairy Face
Symptoms: Swollen eyelids, bags and dark circles under eyes, small white spots and bumps on the chin.
Overtime,
most people lose the ability to digest dairy properly. This causes
inflammation as the body tries to fight off the dairy with the
inflammation inducing chemicals.
For example, the same
inflammatory process that causes redness, swelling and heat around a
sprained ankle or splinter, can trigger puffy eyelids, under-eye bags
and dark circles on your face.
Also, most of the milk on the
market is full of artificial hormones that are fed to the cows. These
also cause problems by disrupting your hormone system and shows up in
the chin area which in face mapping represents the reproductive organs.
How to Fix It:
If one feels that they may have an intolerance to dairy, they should
remove it completely from their diet for three weeks and observe any
changes in their complexion but also their digestion and energy levels!
Gluten Face
Symptoms: Puffy red cheeks, dark pigmentation patches or spots around the chin.
A
reaction to gluten takes its toll on the immune system, in turn
disrupting the delicate balance of reproductive hormones, resulting in
spots or dark pigmentation on the chin, the area associated with the
reproductive organs.
Some patients who have been suffering for
years from Rosacea – a skin condition characterised by a red rash over
the cheeks – have found it much improved, or entirely controlled, when
they remove gluten from their diets.
How to Fix It:
If gluten is the problem, cut it from your diet. When it comes to
gluten, “cutting back” won’t do the trick, it has to be completely
removed. Drink plenty of water and get enough fiber. This will help
balance out the skin and redefine your cheekbones.
Source:
Healthydoc.com
Daily Mail
