Vitamins are important for the skin: The relationship of vitamin A can fight acne and psoriasis. These substances are also found in moisturizers and anti-aging products.
Our body produces vitamin A itself from precursors of the substance; it takes the appropriate building blocks for it from food, for example from egg yolks, carrots or cream. The vitamin – also called retinol – can then be converted into other important substances: These retinoids can perform very different tasks in the body. Our eyes, for example, need retinal to perceive light impulses. Other retinoids play important roles in skin cell growth.
Local application with ointment is preferable to tablets; doctors should only prescribe tablets for severe forms of psoriasis. Patients with acne should only use retinoids as part of a combination therapy. Overall, retinoids can also help in the long term, and in the best case scenario they can even cure the skin disease.
Certain retinoids do their job in the top layer of the skin , in the epidermis. There are the cells that produce the horny layer. The retinoids ensure that too much horny substance does not form. Also, the relatives of vitamin A can reduce inflammation in the skin.
Because retinoids can control horny cells, dermatologists prescribe this substance to people with psoriasis . Because with this disease, the horny cells are too active, they cause, among other things, the dandruff. Retinoids also help with acne because they decrease sebum production. If the sebum glands are blocked and inflamed, the vitamin A relationship can curb the infection.
Retinoids are usually added to ointments. You can apply it to the infected areas. But there are also tablets. Then the drug works throughout the body and can cause serious side effects.
In the meantime, many cosmetic manufacturers have started adding derivatives of vitamin A to creams and lotions . The retinoids are supposed to hold moisture in the skin and thus make wrinkles disappear. But so far there are no studies that prove such an anti-aging effect .