Recap: 3 essentials for healthy skin | Dr. Justine Kluk & Prof. Sarah Berry
13:31 Share

Hello, and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. Today, we're touching on skin. In 2025, global spending on skincare products is expected to approach $200 billion. It's an astonishing figure, but not entirely surprising when you consider the social value we place on this organ. Our skin can reflect our age, our health, even our emotions.

So how can we make smarter choices this year and invest in products that truly support our skin? In this episode, I was joined by Dr. Sarah Berry, alongside my wife and dermatologist Dr. Justine Kluck to help us better understand this fascinating organ.

Perhaps we could start by talking about what actually causes skin aging so we know what potentially we can avoid and then some great tips from you on how we can actually slow it down as well. Okay sure so I think when we think about skin aging we divide it into sort of two categories there's intrinsic aging so this is the passing of time so chronological aging and genetics and

And I think a lot of people would expect that those have the greatest influence on how our skin ages. So you mean, for example, if your mum's or father's skin aged well, you might think, well, that's fine. I'm going to have great skin as well. So yes, correct. And also that you might expect that someone who is 70 looks older than someone who is 60. OK, so there's also this sort of chronological age difference.

Then we have the second category, which are extrinsic influences on aging. Meaning?

And people will probably be amazed to hear that 80% of visible skin ageing is attributable to sun exposure. 80%. So if I had, which I didn't, unfortunately, stayed out of the sun, put sun cream on religiously up until now, and I've only just started wearing sun cream since I've been watching you on Instagram talk about how important it was. If I'd have slathered myself in sun cream up until now, could my skin look...

Could you look even more youthful than you do already? Could I look like my 20-year-old self? Possibly. So the evidence is that sun protective behaviours, and part of that is sunscreen, part of it is also...

you know, staying out of the sun between 12 and 2 when, you know, the sun is directly overhead, wearing a hat, you know, covering up in the sun. So it's not, you know, sunscreen is part of the armamentarium, but it's not everything. But yes, the answer is that protecting your skin in the sun can for sure slow signs of aging. And I think this is quite empowering because we can all do this. Yeah, it's in our control. Exactly. It's not very difficult. I remember Justin and I went on this amazing holiday to Japan once.

early in our relationship when I was trying to convince her to stay with me. And we saw all these women there, right, of all ages, basically with umbrellas. And it's not raining. It's like a sunny day. And so you see like this huge focus there on managing skin exposure. And Justine was like, this is part of why they all look so incredibly young, isn't that right?

And actually that reminds me of something, you know, that's also very interesting is that how we age. So, you know, the manifestations of aging may be slightly different actually in different populations as well. So in more sort of European populations, wrinkling may be the predominant thing. And in Asia, so you were talking about Japan, brown marks or brown spots, dark spots, whatever you want to call them, these pigment changes may be the predominant hallmark of aging. But, you know,

Sometimes people wonder what we mean when we say skin age and what are we talking about? And we're basically talking about the skin becoming drier over time. We lose more moisture through our skin. We lose collagen, this sort of protein in our skin that makes it firm and reduction in collagen causes the skin to wrinkle more and to sag more.

And then the other thing that we get is these dark or brown spots on the skin. And so lots of people I know are taking collagen supplements on the belief that they will enable their skin to stay younger, look more youthful. Do they work? The jury really is still out, Sarah. I mean, am I recommending these in my clinic? No, is the answer. Are there other doctors recommending them? Yes, definitely.

People might want to know what we're talking about when we say collagen supplements. This is sort of collagen that people take in, I guess, capsule form. They're broken down into peptides, absorbed in the intestine. It has been proven that they do find their way into the bloodstream about an hour after they've been eaten, and then they accumulate in the skin. And the idea is that they...

trigger increased collagen production in the skin, which makes the skin firmer, that they may trigger elastin in the skin, which is this other protein that makes the skin more springy, and also improve hydration in the skin. And there have been some studies that show favorable effects when people have taken collagen supplements. There's others that show less of a benefit. The difficulty with interpreting the data is that

A lot of the studies are sponsored by companies who make supplements, so they have an interest in presenting the data in a way that would show that there's a favorable effect. And a question I always have is, we know that we tend to absorb these nutrients better when we get them in food. So do we really need to take a collagen supplement? Could

Couldn't we be thinking more about the Mediterranean diet and getting these nutrients in our food? So before going and shelling out a lot of money on collagen supplements, because that's the other thing, the studies have shown that the effects don't last when you stop taking the collagen supplements.

So this is something that if you were deciding that you were going to take on board, you'd have to keep on doing that. It could end up being awfully expensive. So why don't we think about the inexpensive, easily accessible things that we can do that have lots more evidence behind them? And that's the sunscreen.

Retinol comes from vitamin A and it's available in topical form for improving signs of skin aging, something you put on your skin in the evenings usually because it can make the skin a bit more sensitive to the sun. And that can boost collagen production in the skin, making the skin firmer and can also help with reducing the appearance of some of these brown marks that appear on the skin as well. So that would be something that's... And that's real, is it? Because I remember when I first met you, I'm like...

This is all potions, isn't it? Isn't everything that you put on your skin is all fake? That's real. I often say there are three things if you want to think about skin aging that you can incorporate into your daily routine. And sunscreen is number one. Number two is using retinol at night. And for anyone who's listening to this, you may be pregnant or trying to get pregnant. That's not the time to use retinol. It shouldn't be used at that point in life.

And the third thing is thinking about antioxidants that you can apply to the skin. And vitamin C is the most studied one. So we know that if you apply vitamin C to your skin in topical form, that this increases collagen synthesis. It helps to boost your own collagen production.

It helps to reduce dark marks on the skin. So we make fewer of these. And it also protects us from inflammation in the skin as well. So vitamin C, topical vitamin C is important. And there are other antioxidants, so things like resveratrol, coenzyme Q10. So I know there are other antioxidants that are important, but basically these three groups, antioxidants, sunscreen and retinol are the key things. And

I wonder if I could ask you two top nutrition skin myths that I have seen during the rounds on social media. They might not be myths, so you're the person to ask. One is that polyphenols are our own natural sunscreen. Is that correct? Because I've seen this as headlines. Just eat loads of polyphenols. You don't need to apply sunscreen.

I would say, why don't you do both? Okay. So I think we're not yet in a position where we can say that there is something that you eat that is going to protect your skin well enough so that you don't need to rely on sensible sun protection behaviours, staying in the shade, wearing a hat, covering up. If you are someone who doesn't like using sunscreen, there are other things that you can do. I personally am very comfortable putting sunscreen on exposed sites and I

And I wouldn't rely on these oral polyphenols. But it's not total nonsense in that there is theory there. So for example, if you think about a carotenoid like lycopene may have some photoprotective effects. Omega-3 might have some photoprotective effects. But I definitely am not swapping my sunscreen for those. Okay, great. The other thing that I've seen in lots of headlines is intravenous antioxidant vitamin drips.

it will make you look 10 years and feel, but make you look 10 years younger. And this is a growing craze, I think, amongst a niche community. And for those of you listening, Justine is shaking her head ever more vehemently as Sarah is saying this. I'm just not even going to talk about it. Yeah, no, I don't believe in those. Okay, so I often use the word neutropollocks to talk about nonsense when it comes to nutrition. And what you're saying is intravenous

antioxidant drips to make your skin 10 years younger is neutropollux. But polyphenols as a potential sunscreen isn't advisable, but there is some science behind why it might be photoprotective. I may have even sounded much more strong on the polyphenols as sun protection than I intended to. What I'm saying is I wouldn't dismiss it, keep an eye on the space, but

But for sure, we're not at a position yet where I'd say swap your sunscreen for that. And the antioxidant drips. I'm always, you know, when you work in science or medicine, you have to keep an open mind because things change. I'm prepared to be convinced that those are a good idea, but I'm not at the moment. And I have to ask a follow up question because it impacts my life. How important is it, in fact, that you apply sun protection?

It is important, okay. And I think we've talked about skin ageing here, but there are other things, right? Like your risk of skin cancer increases with age and with cumulative UV exposure. With sunburns, that increases your risk of skin cancer, not least because also they're uncomfortable at the time. So protecting your skin in the sun is more than...

preventing your skin looking older earlier. It's also about reducing risk of things like skin cancer. So just before we run out of time, I mean, we've talked a lot about food. We talked a lot about skincare routines. Is there anything else that a listener can do that can really affect the health of their skin?

Yeah, so absolutely. Stress is mega. And sleep. And so actually in the clinic, when I counsel people about how we're going to manage their skin condition, I always start with genes and hormones. And then we talk about skincare habits. We talk about the food we eat. We talk about stress and sleep. These are sort of the key things we touch on. Something that I think people might be really interested to know is I mentioned earlier about people with acne having higher rates of depression and suicide.

Did you know...

that some of our stress hormones, so thinking about this brain and skin connection, some of our stress hormones actually get released in the sebum, the oil, from our oil-producing glands in the skin and literally bathe the surface of our skin. In stress. We are like bathed physically in stress when we're stressed. Correct. So there is definitely a really strong connection between the brain and the skin in ways that people might not expect.

Yeah, it's really interesting because I've always thought of the skin as just this inert outer layer, like we started, you know, when we started talking. But talking to you now and obviously, you know, having listened to lots of your Instagram posts, it's fascinating how it is a living part of us. Yeah, absolutely. And it's got, you know, we've got this community of all these bugs living on us as well. So it is very much a sort of,

reactive, dynamic organ. And there's so much more we're still going to learn about it. But, you know, I hope I've convinced you. That's all for this week's recap episode. You can find a link to the full conversation in the episode description. If you want to make smarter food choices for your body and transform your health for life, why not try Zoe membership? The first step is easy. Take our free quiz to find out what Zoe membership could do for you.

Simply go to zoe.com slash podcast.