Category Archives: Skin and Hair Care Products

Cholesterol, Traditional Fats and Your Health, Digestive Disorders and Healing Diet, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Skin and Hair Care Products

Smooth, clear, firm skin and diet

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Most people would agree that the skin beauty is a multi-billion dollar industry. However, most of the products we can purchase fail to discuss how much we can improve our skin through diet and how many issues with skin are signs of leaky gut, systemic inflammation and nutrient deficiencies.

One of the components of healthy, firm skin is collagen. One of the foods richest is collagen is old-fashioned bone broth from pastured animals or wild-caught fish. This historic traditional food was a mainstay of the diet for thousands of years.  High quality eggs, meats and dairy from pastured animals also help to maintain collagen. As we have not only removed traditional fats from the diet, but also other nutrient-dense foods, many people today have signs of early aging skin.

The skin is the largest detoxifying organ of the body, so many issues of the skin are caused by this important protective function. Often, when people eat a high carbohydrate diet or one that is high in processed foods,  they may develop a leaky gut. This is most often the result of intestinal damage from a candida overgrowth.  With a leaky gut, the body has more difficulty detoxifying itself through the intestinal tract as it is often inflamed.  A leaky gut can also cause the body to have allergic reactions to many foods and airborne molds and pollens. Under these conditions, the body frequently tries to rid itself of toxins through the skin and various types of epidermal eruptions may be prevalent. All the expensive creams in the world will not heal a leaky gut!

The best way to improve these types of skin problems is to look at the diet and the digestive system.  Working on a long-term time line with a nutrient-dense diet that corrects digestion and malnourishment, will often dramatically improve skin quality. If you look at the remarkable pictures that Dr. Weston A. Price took of immune populations, you will be taken by the undeniable beauty of their skin.

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

Allergies, Digestion and Healing Diet, Cholesterol, Traditional Fats and Your Health, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Skin and Hair Care Products

Do you have dry or cracked skin?

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With winter in full swing, many people can really begin to feel that their skin gets very dry and the constant application of lotions is the only way to stay comfortable. But dry skin may actually be caused from a diet that is too low in old fashioned saturated fats. When your skin is constantly cracking and rough, looking at your diet as part of the problem is a good place to start. In fact when Dr. Francis Pottenger was working with nutrition and healing the chronically ill with nutrient-dense foods, he found that dry skin was relieved by adding fat to the diet. He said that dry skin is not caused from soaps or weather, but from the diet not rich enough in fat.

In his book, “Pottenger’s Cats, A Study in Nutrition,” he states that “Fats are present in every living cell and are essential to life. Intracellular fat is an important constituent in tissues such as muscle, brain, pancreas, and skin. Nerves are surrounded by a myelin sheath and largely composed of fats: leukocytes, the life-protecting scavengers of the body, are also largely composed of fats. ” Later he says, “In our experience, dry skin provides an index of disturbed fat metabolism. Most patients attribute their dry skin disorders to one of the following causes: hard water, improperly neutralized soaps, detergents, various household chemicals, exposure to the sun or wind, dry weather, dust or incompatible or excessive cosmetics. Few suspect deficiencies in their fat intake. Recognizing that fatty acids have largely disappeared from our modern dietary, we have worked out a high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate diet for general rehabilitation.”

When you start to add fats like raw butter, coconut oil and lard to your daily fare, you may notice over time that your skin improves dramatically. This will be especially true when your digestion improves and you are better nourished from eating a nutrient-dense diet that is rich in vitamins A and D for nutrient absorption. Remember, Dr. Weston A. Price found in his studies of healthy cultures that traditional fats were a very important part of the diet. He found that without both vitamins A and D from natural sources and adequate traditional fats you could not absorb the nutrients from you foods no matter how good the diet.

From this information you might consider that dry skin may be a sign of malnourishment. With the constant buzz that a low-fat /high fiber diet is so healthy, is it a wonder that many people are asking “why”, when their skin is dry and they just don’t feel well on this regimen?

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense foods see Performance without Pain and our new e-book on healing acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle

Environmental Toxins and Health, Healing and Building Health with Nutrient-Dense Foods, Skin and Hair Care Products

Are your hair and skin care products and cosmetics toxic?

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While a nutrient dense diet is critical to building optimal health and maximizing your detox ability, removing toxic products from your menu of skin and hair care and cosmetics is also very important. The combination of all the poisons we are exposed to adds up and puts extra strain on our bodies. In the EWG study (Body burden, 2002) that tested 9 healthy subjects for 210 chemicals, they found 167 chemicals in every subject and 91 compounds were industrial toxins! Of these, 76 were linked to cancer, 94 were neurotoxic, 86 were hormonal disruptors and 79 were associated with birth defects or abnormal development.

If you read the ingredients on your shampoo, conditioner and cosmetics containers and they look like a chemical factory–think twice about using them!

The best way to begin to reduce this toxic load is to control what you can control. Here are a few links to sources of toxin-free body care products and cosmetics:

http://healing-scents.com/index.html
http://www.drrons.com/

For more information on building health and healing with nutrient-dense-foods see our book Performance without Pain and our new e-book on acid reflux.

Best in health,

Kathryne Pirtle