Your skin + Essential Fatty Acid Deficiency (Efad)
THE POWER OF ESSENTIAL FATTY ACIDS!
You may have heard us talking about EFA’s in the past during a consult, treatment or Instagram post and for good reason...
We tend to talk about them A LOT and that’s because they are so incredibly important for not only our skin but our body! You may be surprised to know that EFA’s are not produced by our bodies so therefore they must come from the food we eat! We can incorporate EFA’s in our diet by consuming foods such as avocados, salmon, nuts (walnuts), flax, hemp and/or chia seeds.
If you are already incorporating these foods into your diet you are already on the right track to fabulous skin! Although in saying this, you would need to eat around 50 avocados a day for it to be effective as our skin is the last to absorb these fats. That’s why we encourage everyone to take a high quality essential fatty acid supplement to increase our daily intake.
What do EFA’s do? EFA’s help develop healthy cell membranes which increase our cell function and maintain the health of our entire body. When our bodies have high levels of EFA’s this helps us to prevent/correct skin barrier disorders. As high levels of EFA’s help our bodies to produce healthy oils onto our skin which provides us with a healthy skin barrier, which is called the acid mantle. The acid mantle is extremely important in keeping our skin healthy, hydrated and able to function properly. When our skin is able to function properly it helps to reduce inflammation, supports skin healing and regeneration and lowers the rate of trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL).
SIDE NOTE: TEWL occurs when our skin barrier (the acid mantle) is impaired and therefore allows the water in our skin to evaporate out and leaves us with a dull, congested, irritated skin!
What happens when we lack EFA’s? When we lack EFA’s this is when we start to see problems in the skin. Typically you will see red, irritated, congested, flaky, dull skin which also tends to make the person look older than what they are!! Low levels of EFA’s result in poor quality oil which creates poor quality skin due to a poor functioning acid mantle. This can lead to conditions like acne, pigmentation, rosacea, dull/tired skin and so on....
Below are some symptoms of an EFA deficiency:
- Inflammation
- Memory loss/inability to concentrate
- Alzheimer’s
- Depression/ nervous disorders
- Cardiovascular disease
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Fatigue
- Joint pain
- Psoriasis, dry, scaly, itchy skin
- Brittle nails, dry hair.
Benefits of EFA’s: EFA’s are needed in every process in our body therefore it is obvious why we need to increase these in our diets. It has been suggested the EFA’s help to increase our memory and thinking, increase blood flow and can also help with arthritis and reduce the possibility of Alzheimer’s!
EFA supplements: you want to ensure you are purchasing a quality EFA supplement, as some supplements out there do not actually contain enough of their nutritional value to be beneficial in anyway. This can be because of the way it is produced, either from poor quality ingredients or heat has been used in the process of making the oil.
At SJM we have our oral Beauty Oil which is our all time fav! A benefit of the beauty oil is that you only need to take one tablespoon a day! It is also cold pressed and unrefined meaning it hasn’t been processed maintaining the nutritional value of the oil. It is also a flaxseed oil which means you won’t get that awfully fishy taste either!
I hope this has helped everyone understand the importance of EFA’s, if you have any more questions please don’t hesitate to ask!
Jess - Dermal Therapist @ SJM xxx