Abstract

Antioxidants are important radical scavengers protecting the body from the consequences of oxidative stress. They have to be ingested by food rich in fruits and vegetables or by food supplements. The effects of the intake of curly-kale containing food supplements on the skin are described in this paper. For this purpose, verum and placebo groups had been investigated for several months noninvasively in vivo by determining their cutaneous antioxidative status, their collagen-to-elastin index of the dermis, and various age-related skin parameters. While in the verum groups the cutaneous antioxidative status and the skin moisture increased significantly, only small changes were found in the placebo groups. The collagen content in the skin of the verum group showed a tendency towards increasing.
Besides a healthy nutrition, a selected supplementation consisting of low-dosed natural carotenoids at a physiological concentration can improve the antioxidative capacity of the skin, thus counteracting an age-related degradation of collagen I in the dermis.