What effect does vitamin C have on beauty and health?

Update time : 2020-01-22 10:12:00

This article continues to popularize the relationship between vitamins and skin beauty and health. This time, the theme is Vitamin C.

Vitamin C is also called ascorbic acid, commonly known as "prototype VC", and its most efficient structure is left-right photoascorbic acid, that is, L-ascorbic acid.

Vitamin C and Free Radicals
Vitamin C is one of the most important antioxidants in human body. As we all know, The human body will continuously produce various free radicals during its operation, If these radicals are not neutralized or quenched, They will steal an electron from another molecule (they are very active because they lack electrons). After stealing the electrons, Although it has achieved its own structural stability, However, it leads to the damage of other molecules (the most common is membrane structure, such as cell membrane or mitochondrial outer membrane, nucleus, etc.). After the destruction of membrane structure, it may lead to the death of cells or the decrease of vitality, and cells are more vulnerable to external damage. Therefore, anti-free radical is a very important self-defense function of human body.

Some self-contained anti-free radical substances are produced in the human body, but we must ingest some antioxidants from the outside world, especially vitamin C-this is quite amazing. Substances that are so important to our body (which really affect life and death) cannot be synthesized by ourselves, but must be ingested from fruits and vegetables or other foods.

However, in fact, vitamin C has a very wide range of regulatory effects on human body. Besides antioxidation and scavenging free radicals, its most famous function is to promote the synthesis of collagen (but at present, the mainstream cognition of vitamin C is more limited to brightening and whitening). Collagen is the most important structural protein in our body, and the scaffolds of various tissues and organs in our body (blood vessels, bones, dermis, various membrane structures on the surface of viscera, and the main body of tendon) are all composed of collagen.

Vitamin C must be involved in the synthesis of collagen, Vitamin C was first discovered because of the prevalence of scurvy: at that time, the ocean-going fleet lacked fresh fruits and vegetables because of long-term sailing at sea, which led to the lack of vitamin C among the crew, which further affected the synthesis of collagen, so the blood vessel wall became very fragile and easy to bleed. This disease is scurvy. Later, it was found that eating lemon can alleviate scurvy. Further research found that vitamin C really played a role. In the past, only a few companies in the world were able to synthesize vitamin C, so the price was very expensive. Later, in 1970s, China broke through the two-step fermentation method of vitamin C, which enabled it to synthesize a large amount (so the output of vitamin C in China accounted for about 70% of the world total). Since then, the shortage of vitamin C in the world has been fundamentally alleviated.

Benefits of Vitamin C to Skin
The main effect of vitamin C on dermis is to promote the synthesis of collagen. When the synthesis amount of collagen in dermis is sufficient, the elasticity and firmness of skin can be well guaranteed.

We did an experiment before, Treating human fibroblasts with vitamin C, it is found that 3.7 ppm (3.7 ppm) of vitamin C can strongly promote collagen synthesis, which is enough to show its high efficiency. Therefore, after smearing vitamin C on the skin, we should try our best to use some penetration promotion methods to make vitamin C penetrate into the dermis to give full play to its role. In short, vitamin C has been an important ingredient in our anti-aging, wrinkle improvement and skin elasticity for decades.

In addition, vitamin C has many other functions:
1) Studies have found that vitamin C can reduce sebum secretion, but the mechanism is still unclear.
2) Vitamin C can maintain a low pH value on the skin surface, and a weakly acidic pH value is very important for the health of our skin.
3) Vitamin C also has a certain whitening effect, The reason why we want to say "certain" whitening effect, Compared with other whitening agents, vitamin C is relatively weak in inhibiting melanin synthesis, but it can improve skin color in many ways. Although its inhibition of melanin is not as strong as that of special tyrosinase inhibitors, it has a significant effect on the overall improvement of skin color. Because dermis firming will increase skin smoothness and glossiness, and vitamin C, as an antioxidant, can reduce saccharification and free radical damage, so the skin will look brighter. In addition, it can inhibit melanin synthesis to a certain extent, so it can play a comprehensive role in all aspects and realize skin color brightening.

If we use those really effective vitamin C products, we will find that in a relatively short time, the skin will show a crystal clear feeling.

Problem: The stability of vitamin C
In the field of cosmetics, how to use vitamin C has long been a difficult point, because it is particularly unstable, and vitamin C will lose about 50% every month in aqueous solution without any treatment. After oxidation, it will turn yellow, and then its color will gradually deepen until it is dark brown, and its utility will be completely lost. Therefore, the disadvantage of vitamin C is that it is too active, difficult to preserve, and the formula is very difficult to make. So far, how to maintain the stability of vitamin C in aqueous system is still a worldwide problem.

To solve this problem, there are several major technical schools:

The first major genre is to use anhydrous formula. Using propylene glycol as dispersant, the fine powder of vitamin C is suspended in alcohol system. This system does not contain water, which can keep VC stable for a long time. However, products with too high propylene glycol content will produce burning sensation when used on skin, and if they cannot be used up in time after opening, propylene glycol and glycerol will absorb water from the air and turn yellow slowly.

The second major school uses antioxidant components such as vitamin C and E and ferulic acid to cooperate with each other, and uses a small amount of water as solvent, which can keep its activity well to a certain extent and realize the synergistic effect of VC and VE. However, products that have been opened for too long will gradually turn yellow.

The third major school uses derivatives of vitamin C, and other chemical side chains (groups) are connected to its active groups. In this way, products smeared on skin or entering human body can "cut" the modified groups under the action of enzymes, and reduce vitamin C to an active state to play a role. At present, Ascorbyl Tetraisopalmitate and 3-0-Ethyl Ascorbic Acid (a white powder with high titer at present) are widely used. These derivatives remain stable for a longer time, at the cost of their low biological potency, because the human body must undergo enzymatic hydrolysis to cut off the corresponding groups before they can play a role.

The fourth major school adopts hydrolyzed ion retention technology.

How to supplement vitamin C efficiently
Besides external vitamin C, how can we supplement vitamin C?

Yes: Eat! In addition to fresh fruits and vegetables, the vitamin content of wild fruits such as green pepper, citrus, kiwi fruit, acerola cherry, kam fruit and Rosa roxburghii is very high.

Nowadays, people eat more take-out, but take-out generally doesn't like to add fresh vegetables, so it is easy to cause vitamin C deficiency. At this time, we can choose health care products or medicines vitamin C, whose chemical structural formula and mechanism of action are exactly the same.

The oral dose of vitamins of 200 ~ 400 mg/day is enough to meet our basic life and beauty needs, Older people can eat a little more. Besides anti-aging, it is also helpful to the health of the whole bone and cardiovascular system (because it can promote the synthesis of collagen, which is the basic structural component of these tissues).

Do you want to take it externally or orally?

External use has the advantages of external use, while oral use has the function of oral use. The two are not mutually exclusive, but synergistic. .

Regarding the relationship between vitamin C and beauty and health, this article will be popularized here first, hoping to help everyone. I want to know more about vitamins and beauty and health. See you next time.

Next : What effect does vitamin B family have on beauty and health?