When it comes to foods that take their toll on your wellbeing, as well as your ageing process, one underlying theme seems to be that they dehydrate your skin. Sure, you could amp up your intake of water – which is certainly no bad thing for your wellness – but if you really want to make your anti-ageing regime the best it can be, there are certain foods you need to avoid.
With dehydration, the number one culprit to turn on is salt. Anyone who’s ever eaten a bag of crisps will tell you that you get thirsty afterwards, and salt is the reason why. The dehydration that salt causes your body causes you to become fatigued, and this, in turn, makes you look tired and worn out. As an added bonus, consuming salt excessively can cause you to develop high blood pressure and kidney disease, and it also interferes with your bone metabolism. Bottom line: don’t pass the salt.
Another well-known dehydrating ingredient is caffeine. Sure, your morning cup of coffee gets you going in the morning – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but the average Brit drinks four cups of something caffeinated every day, and that’s where the danger of looking fatigued rears its ugly head, as well as yellowing your teeth. The same goes for caffeinated energy drinks and, according to the Dr. Oz Show, energy drinks damage the enamel in your teeth eight times more than fizzy drinks do, which makes your teeth look yellow and unhealthy, meaning that you look older.
While we’re mentioning fizzy drinks, these too tend to dehydrate the body, as they are high in sugar. The Dr. Oz show adds that consuming too much alcohol dehydrates your body, and so that vodka and coke is a cocktail for anti-ageing disaster! However, the ageing properties of alcohol don’t stop dehydration, but Dr. Oz explains that your favourite tipple also causes wrinkles, loss of collagen, redness and puffiness – lovely!
If in doubt, avoid things that are high in salt, sugar, caffeine or alcohol, but if you do partake then GalTime.com recommends plenty of water: ‘A good rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces. So if you weight 130 lbs, you need 65 ounces of water a day – just over eight cups.’