With autumn round the corner, it’s time to shed that dull looking, dried-out summer skin.

During the sunnier weather it’s not necessary to wear as much makeup and it’s not great to clog the skin with thick foundations, so it’s time to give the skin some TLC before winter sets in.

Beauty starts from the inside, so a good diet will help produce healthy looking skin. Increase your vegetable and fruit intake and reduce the amount of salt you eat to deal with puffiness and minimise the risk of spots and blemishes.

Health food stores often sell supplements to pep up the skin, but use discernment as it can sometimes be trial and error when finding out what’s right for you.

Start by tightening up your daily facial routine. Invest in good, natural cleansers, toners and moisturisers and start doing those toning facial exercises you promised yourself you’d try out. You’ll be surprised what a difference this makes.

Next, ensure that you’re using a good exfoliant on a regular basis. A gentle facial scrub will slough off dead skin cells that make the skin look dry or dull and leave you with fresh, new, glowing skin underneath. The massaging action that you use will also help stimulate the blood and lymph flow in the facial area, getting the circulation going and eliminating toxins.

Deal with those puffy eyes and dark circles – there are plenty of beauty products on the market that promise to soothe the eye area and draw out toxins. Using green tea bags as a poultice will really make a difference too – they’re full of antioxidants and much cheaper than chemical based cosmetic products that have just come out of the lab.

If you still want to reach for the foundation, try a lighter, moisturising product with a high SPF that will protect your skin from increased sun exposure. Experiment with colours for the eyes and lips and go for shimmer all the way – think light and bright and you’ll step into the new season looking fresh and vibrant.

Rhian Gibbings

In a counter-intuitive article in the New York Times, which quotes researchers in Germany and Boston, exercise and antioxidants don’t mix. “If you exercise to improve your metabolism and prevent diabetes, you may want to avoid antioxidants like vitamins C and E.”

Dr. Michael Ristow, a nutritionist at the University of Jena in Germany, said, “If you exercise to promote health, you shouldn’t take large amounts of antioxidants. … antioxidants in general cause certain effects that inhibit otherwise positive effects of exercise, dieting and other interventions.”

It seems that exercise encourages muscle cells to metabolize glucose by combining carbon atoms with oxygen. In the process, highly reactive oxygen molecules are released which then attack various parts of the body damaging the tissues.

The Jena team found that in the group taking antioxidant vitamins, like vitamins C and E, there was no improvement in insulin sensitivity and almost no activation of the body’s natural defence mechanism against oxidative damage.

Once again, what we thought was done and dusted has been called into question by more research.

However, the advice does not apply to fruits and vegetables, Ristow said, even though they are high in antioxidants, it may be that other substances they contain outweigh any negative effect.

Andrew Shao of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association of dietary supplement makers, said, “I wouldn’t change recommendations for anyone based on one study. This is one small piece of the puzzle.”

The amount of oxidative damage increases with age, and according to one theory of aging it is a major cause of the body’s decline.

The findings appear in this week’s issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

John Evans

The latest health panacea and longevity aid is a very unlikely one — “heavy” water.

Heavy water (HW) occurs when the hydrogen atom — the “H” in H2O — is an isotope of normal hydrogen called deuterium. Deuterium weighs twice as much, hence the “heavy” tag.

Apart from the odd chemistry lesson at school, most people will know about heavy water from the film Heroes of Telemark, a wartime adventure in which Richard Widmark leads a British raid on Telemark in Denmark. The aim is to destroy a heavy water plant which threatens London with an atom bomb attack.

According to scientists the consumption of HW adds 10 percent to the lifespan of earthworms and 30 percent to other species. Humans are thought to be in for an extra 10 years of life if fed HW products, which can include bread, cakes or even pork from pigs fed with the water.

However, a close reading of the reports indicates that HW works by strengthening cells against free radical damage. Regular readers of Sideways Health will know that we are already well armed with a great many antioxidants in highly coloured fruit and vegetables that perform the same task.

It’s not clear whether heavy water adds to that effect or, to use a pun, will be swallowed up in it. In other words, will HW be wasted on folk who already consume 6000 ORAC of antioxidants a day?

We will keep an eye on this story to see how it develops.

Tomatoes have long been known to possess many health benefits. Whether eaten raw in salads and sandwiches, or cooked and processed into soups, purees, pastes and sauces, the good news just keeps on coming.

We’ve heard about their effect in preventing various types of cancer, of prostate and the skin, and the humble fruit’s use against heart disease and stroke. Now it’s a great cosmetic too.

The benefits are credited to lycopene, the pigment behind the distinctive red skin and a powerful antioxidant.

Professor Birch-Machin, of Newcastle University believes tomatoes are a cheap and simple way of improving health and looking good.

After a joint study by Manchester and Newcastle universities, he said, “I went into the study as a sceptic, but I was quite surprised with the significance of the findings.”

The British Society for Investigative Dermatology’s annual conference was told that tests using ultra-violet lamps showed that tomato-eaters were a third better protected against sunburn at the end of the study than at the start. Other tests suggested a tomato-based diet boosted production of collagen, the protein that keeps skin supple.

Tomatoes also protect the mitochondria, the parts of cells that turn food we eat into energy. “Being kind to our mitochondria is likely to contribute to improved skin health, which in turn may have an anti-ageing effect,” Professor Birch-Machin said.

The researchers now recommend two tomato-based meals a day for optimum health.