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Red Palm Oil for Eczema
For an online video presentation visit the
American Palm Oil
Council and more information see:
wikipedia
Although it's one of the top two most abundantly produced vegetables oils in
the world alongside soybean oil, palm oil is not well known in the US; and, in
its natural form of red, it's practically unheard of. You see, in its
virgin state, it is red in color because it contains more beta carotenes than
carrots or any other oil in the world. When heated, the carotenes are destroyed and it loses its red color. Research has shown that beta
carotene applied to the skin is
found to rapidly improve the epithelial barrier function from damage
caused by chemical irritation or inflammation. Topical beta-carotene
penetrated well into human epidermis and induced a 10-fold increase of epidermal retinyl esters,
which demonstrates that topical beta-carotene is converted into retinyl esters
by human epidermis and thus appears as a precursor of epidermal vitamin A.
See
NIH report.
Vitamin A Nutrition: Carotenes
from Virgin Palm Oil
In nature, there
are approximately 600 known carotenoids, ranging from yellow orange to red hues
and some 50 of these pigments possess vitamin A activity of varying degrees.
Virgin Palm Oil is one of the richest natural plant sources of carotenoids with
concentration of 500-700 ppm. It has 15 times more carotenoids than carrots and
300 times more than tomatoes. No other vegetable oil contains carotenoids in
such significant quantities. Analysis shows that alpha and beta carotenes
constitute approximately 90% of the total carotenoid content.
Note: Vitamin A toxic levels are not possible from consuming beta carotene
from Virgin Palm Oil.
The Skin and Vitamin A
Vitamin A is essential to maintain intact
epithelial tissues as a physical barrier to infection. It is
essential for the correct functioning, development and maintenance of
epithelial cells. These cells form the outer layer of
the skin. Vitamin A promotes tissue healing and strengthens and protects the skin tissue.
It also fights
infection which is implicated in eczema.
Vitamin A and its derivatives (retinol, retinoic acid, retinaldehyde) have an
anti-ageing effect when applied to the skin. They accelerate cell renewal and
stimulate the production of keratinocytes and fibroblasts as well as collagen.
Retinoids suppress impaired elastic fibres and thus encourage a reduction in
wrinkles and fine lines as well as improvement in the skin’s
biomechanical properties. They increase dermal vascularisation, and by
renewing keratinocytes, reduce pigmented spots. The skin looks more delicate,
with a better color, less wrinkled, in short – it looks younger and more
attractive.
What to Use and How to Use it
Since
it is red, I just stay away from wearing white clothes.
At first it'll go on looking like you put an instant self tanner on. If you're putting it on your hands, just wait a little
bit before touching white. A small inconvenience; but, since beta carotene
is red, we want the red color, and I much prefer the bronzing side effect over
the negative side effects from steroids.
See the new
research article on the barrier function, and note that sunflower oil helps repair the barrier
function but olive and soybean delayed it.
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