How diet can help your dry skin in winter

Alice asked: "My skin gets a bit scaly during the winter months and moisturising makes no difference. Could my diet help?"

Here's Anita's advice:

"Hi Alice,

Dry, scaly skin can be caused by lack of nutrients in the diet. If you are taking diuretics, anti histamines or anti-spasmatic drugs – all of these can contribute to having a dry, scaly skin.

In most cases, however, we find there is a deficiency in iron or zinc in most cases of dermatitis or psoriasis which dry, scaly skin is usually the start of.

The richest food sources for zinc are oysters, beef steak and crab. Iron – green leafy vegetables, wheat germ.

Also essential fatty acids are important. Omega 3s and 6 which you can get from fish oils, starflower oil and blackcurrant seed oil. All the omegas are really good to stop the dryness in the skin.

If you're taking essential fatty acids, it's really good to stop dryness to also take vitamin C and E. Vitamin C you will mostly find in citrus fruit such as oranges and lemons. Vitamin E is very rich in prawns, wheat germ, almonds and sunflower seeds.

So, a good mixture of food but both vitamins are really important for dry skin.

Another important nutrient that people don't realise is lyocpene and lycopene is found in tomatoes. Lots of red skins - sweet potatoes, tomatoes and melon. Very, very rich in lyocpene. It's a really strong antioxidant. Again it's very anti-ageing for the body, it protects against free radical damage. Lycopene really does stop the redness in skin.

If you find you can't get it from your diet then think of taking a really high quality supplement such as Vitabiotics Perfectil Plus because that contains all the ingredients you need. The lycopene in really good quantities, lots of essential fatty acids, omega 3s and 6s as well as doubling as your daily vitamin and mineral.

Good luck!"