How your lifestyle affects your skin health

Lifestyle factors such as diet, smoking and exercise can improve the appearance of skin and reduce the risk of skin cancer.

Diet and nutrition

Many diet and nutrition-related factors affect the health of the skin:

• A diet with a high intake of vegetables, olive oil, fish and legumes such as chickpeas, beans and lentils, and a low intake of sugar and dairy products has been shown to reduce the development of sun-damaged skin (Purba 2001).
• A diet high in vitamin C and linoleic acid (found in safflower, sunflower, and evening primrose oil) results in fewer wrinkles and less skin dryness (Cosgrove 2007).
• People who drink coffee may have a lower risk of developing several types of skin cancer (Loftfield 2008, Song 2011, Ferrucci 2014).
• Vitamin C has proven benefits in wound healing and improving the signs of skin ageing (Pullar 2017).
• Fish oil may decrease pigmentation associated with ageing and has been shown in some trials to reduce the risk of both melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma (Huang 2018).
• Anti-oxidants, particularly co-enzyme Q10, can reduce inflammation which degrades collagen and elastin in the skin (Baumann 2007).

Exercise

Regular exercise has been shown to improve skin health and reverse some of the effects of ageing. Exercise increases blood flow to the skin, which allows more oxygen and nutrients to be delivered to the cells. This promotes the development of the skin’s collagen framework, which prevents sagging and wrinkles (Buiscemi 2021).

Exercise has been shown to reverse changes in mitochondria found in our muscles and skin (Szelinski 2021). The skin of people age 65 and over who exercise frequently more closely resembles healthy skin for individuals of much younger ages, between 20 and 40 (McClung 2020).

Smoking

Smoking damages the skin, increases the risk of squamous cell carcinoma (Whiteman 2019), delays wound healing and contributes significantly to skin ageing. Nicotine narrows blood vessels and blood flow, reducing the amount of oxygen and nutrients that reach the cells. Many other chemicals in tobacco smoke increase the activity of enzymes that break down collagen and elastin.

• The heat from burning cigarettes and the facial muscle movements associated with smoking contribute to wrinkles (Ernster 1995).
• The skin of smokers is thinner (Sandby-Møller 2003).
• Chemicals in cigarettes, such as nitrosamines and tar, have been shown to cause cancer (Ayer 2018).

References

Ayer J 2018 Skin ageing DermNet NZ.

Baumann L 2007 Skin ageing and its treatment Journal of Pathology, volume 211, issue 2. January 2007.

Cancer Council Australia Epidemiology of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, in Clinical practice guidelines for keratinocyte cancer, version 1.1 2024.

Cancer Council Australia Risk factors/epidemiology skin cancer statistics and issues, last updated 2022.

Cosgrove M, Franco O, Granger S et al 2007 Dietary nutrient intakes and skin-aging appearance among middle-aged American women. Am J Clin Nutr Oct;86(4):1225-31.

Ernster V, Grady D, Miike R et al 1995 Facial wrinkling in men and women, by smoking status. Am J Public Health. 1995 January; 85(1): 78–82.

Ferucci L, Cartmel B, Molinaro A et al 2014 Tea, coffee, and caffeine and early-onset basal cell carcinoma in a case-control study. European Journal of Cancer Prevention. 23(4):296–302, Jul 2014.

Huang T, Wang P, Yang S 2018 Cosmetic and therapeutic applications of fish oil’s fatty acids on the skin. Mar Drugs. 2018 Aug; 16(8): 256.

Leiter U, Garbe C 2008 Epidemiology of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer: the role of sunlight Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol. 624, pp. 89–103.

Loftfield E, Freedman N, Graubard L et al 2015 Coffee drinking and cutaneous melanoma risk in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 107, issue 2, 1 February 2015, dju421.

Pullar J, Carr A, Vissers M 2017 The roles of vitamin C in skin health nutrients. 2017 Aug; 9(8): 866.

Purba M, Kouris-Blazos A, Wattanapenpaiboon N et al 2001 Skin wrinkling: can food make a difference? J Am Coll Nutr, 20(1):71-80.

Song F, Qureshi A, Han J 2011 Abstract B106: Coffee consumption and the risk of skin cancer. Cancer Prev Res October 1 2011 (4) (10 Supplement) B106.

Szelinski T 2021 The science of exercise and skin health. Biodermis blog: 7 April 2021.