SHAWN STEVENSON: Our skin is our most outer part of our bodies, of our nervous system. Our skin is picking up data and sending it to all of our organs. What's going on inside of our bodies is sending back data to our skin. Our skin can be a powerful indicator of our overall health, but forget all that. For most of us, we just want our skin to look good. We wanna have that glow. We want to have that bruce Leroy, last Dragon, supermodel Glow. And we want to avoid those things that tell the tale of our skin's excessive aging and damage. We want to protect our skin from the inside out and from the outside in. And that's what this episode is all about. This is a powerful masterclass with two world leading experts in skin health.

And this is a diversity of perspectives, i'm telling you once you hear who these two experts are and their background. But you're gonna hear some similarities that keep popping up again and again. And this is truly gonna arm you with some critical insights on how to have the very best skin possible. Now, as you're going to hear from our experts, in addition to topical treatments, our skin is literally made from the food that we eat. Preparing and cooking healthy food is one of the greatest leverage points of beauty and a longer lifespan. And more and more people are embracing this right now, and I'm so grateful.

But also, people are getting rid of the toxic and health degrading products in their cooking space, in their kitchen, and one of the most notorious is our cookware itself. For years, Teflon non-stick cookware has been poisoning people. One of the most notorious compounds used to make Teflon cookware is a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA. It has been found repeatedly in peer reviewed studies to contribute to higher rates of infertility, liver disease, and a variety of cancers. For instance, a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute concluded that PFOA is a strong kidney carcinogen with risk of developing kidney cancer, increasing in tandem with our levels of exposure, dose response relationship.

So truly this is unacceptable because this has been allowed to go on for decades before litigation was put in place to get this particular chemical complex out of cookware. And so it has only recently been removed only to be replaced with chemicals like Gen X. That's actually been found to be similarly toxic according to a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency. And that's the thing about these companies, they keep finding a way to cut corners and to utilize these chemical complexes, newly invented chemical complexes with the focus on creating a certain superficial experience. For people in the kitchen while at the same time literally poisoning their brains and their bodies, and those days are coming to an end because people are saying Enough is enough, and choosing better options.

Of course, we've got the classic cookware like cast iron. We've got stainless steel, but for so many people who love super simple non-stick cooking and also beautiful cookware, one of my favorite gifts to give the people that I love is the cookware from our place. I cook with our cookware literally every single day. It's non-toxic. It's PFAS free and it utilizes a patented safe ceramic coating. It has over 75,005 star reviews. On their award-winning cookware. Also, I have their amazing pressure cooker, their air fryer as well. That's one of the biggest sources of these PFAS chemicals, by the way, is these air fryers because of the temperatures that they're being cooked at.

And so upgrading our air fryer was a big one. And also you could check out their titanium non-stick cookware as well. Just head over to fromourplace.com/model right now, and you're gonna receive 10% off all of their cookware and appliances when you use the code, when model. Alright? That's the key. Again, that website again is fromourplace.com/model. That's F-R-O-M-O-U-R-P-L-A-C e.com/model. And with their 100 day risk-free trial, free shipping and free returns, you can give this gift to yourself and others. With total confidence, head over to fromourplace.com/model. Use the code model at checkout for 10% off. And now without further ado, let's get into this special masterclass with two of the world's leading experts on skin health to share some powerful tips and insights and revealed the real secrets to glowing skin.

First up, we have the one and only Dr. Trevor Cates. Dr. Trevor Cates is the author of the USA Today national bestselling book, clean Skin From Within. And she's been featured on the biggest shows in major media, including the Doctors, extra tv, and many others. And in this powerful segment, she's going to share with you how your skin can give you critical clues about your overall health, what leaky skin is. The number one trigger food for skin problems, the importance of protecting your skin microbiome. She's gonna share amazing DIY face masks and skincare treatments that will give your skin that healthy glow and so much more. Enjoy this first segment from the amazing Dr. Trevor Cates. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: I think a lot of times people forget that our skin is our largest organ and it is interconnected with the rest of our bodies. And oftentimes skin is what gives us early warning signs that something's out of balance in the body. And you know a low thyroid function, dry skin can be one of the first signs of low thyroid, and when we're stressed, sometimes our skin just becomes more reactive. There are a lot of things that show up on our skin first, and then it clues us into other imbalances in the body. But unfortunately, I think a lot of people look at skin as just something that.

Is it, you know, it's annoying, right? First of all, what can I do to cover it up, suppress it, and not really realizing that your skin is actually giving you clues about your health. I think our skin is so fascinating, and we have a whole bunch of microorganisms that live on this skin. We have hormones in our skin. We have stress response in our skin. There's a lot going on on the surface of our skin, and it has a lot of big, important functions with the body because it's on the outside. It's there to protect us from the outside world. So having that barrier function is so important. But the problem is, is that it starts to break down for a lot of people. They develop things like leaky skin. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Talk more, say more. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Well, I think a lot of people talk these days about leaky gut, where the digestive track lining becomes more permeable than it should. And so food particles can slip through, get into the bloodstream and create a number of issues, including autoimmune issues and things. But our skin also has a barrier function and it can start to break down as well. So then our skin becomes more permeable. And so whatever we put on our skin actually could get absorbed more easily. But what people see, what they notice is like we, leaky gut, you can't see it. You can't, you can't notice it. But with leaky skin, you start to notice things like irritated skin, eczema, acne. And so those are signs that that skin barrier function has broken down and it's, it's really important to build it back up. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Bananas. That is bananas. It's leaky skin, you know, if you think about it, why would that matter? It's like, and then you talk about this in the book as well, the things that we put on our skin, our skin eats too, you know, it absorbs. And a lot of the things that we are, you know, conventional stuff people are putting on their skin every day. They're putting dozens of toxicants really, that are in all of these different creams and lotions and all these things. So you're gonna absorb more of these, some of them are even carcinogen. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yes. Hormone disrupting effects, carcinogens, a lot of toxicity issues in our personal care products. On average, people use nine personal care products a day, which expose us to 126 unique ingredients, and that's according to the environmental work group. And the problem is that the FDA doesn't regulate ingredients and personal care products very well. So many of these ingredients, unfortunately, are quite toxic and, and in Europe, they've banned over a thousand ingredients, where as in the US they've banned 11 ingredients. So it's really up to us as consumers to do a little research on what we're putting on our skin, especially people who have compromised skin like the leaky skin issues. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. And if people want a reference point, there's actually a lot of hormone creams like that we literally rub into our skin to change what's happening with our hormone ca, our hormone cascade. Right. And we're doing that with just about everything that we're putting on our skin in general.

DR. TREVOR CATES: So, yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times people forget that that's a route of medication that we use. Nicotine patches or hormone creams or like you mentioned, but yet people will put things on their skin without really thinking about, is this going to get into my body? Is this getting into my bloodstream? Where is it going and what is it doing? And I think a lot of times we want to trust that, that the FDA different organizations and, and companies are looking out for our best interests.

But as a doctor and as a skin year skincare manufacturer, I can tell you it's been an interesting ride to start making skincare products and looking at the lack of regulations in the industry and knowing what can be, what people can get away with. And I mean, people don't know that there are things, even like, and ingredients. You can change your formulas without telling your customers. You could change a certain percentage of the ingredients without changing the list that's on the label. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: That is nuts. It's so crazy. Right? And again, like our skin eats, there's regulation over food. Not, not that well by the way either, but you know, again, we, we have this underlying trust factor that there's this entity out here is looking out for our best interests. But if you look, I'm a big results person. If you look at the results of our society, like we're not in a good state. The things that we're consuming, whether it's.

The things we're exposed to externally or internally. And that leads to this important question and insight, which is we tend to think that our skin just happens, right? It just, it's just skin. It just happens. But our skin is really made from the food that we eat. So let's talk a little bit about that.

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, absolutely. What you eat plays a huge impact on your skin, and it's interesting that with conventional dermatology, a lot of times, most of the time dermatologists don't talk about this with their patients. But I think there's more and more research coming out with this connection, so we really can't deny the connection anymore. And I could tell you with all the, with the books that I've written and all of my patients and things, they definitely see the difference in what they eat and what shows up on their skin. So there are certain foods that really trigger skin issues. The biggest one is sugar. Sugar is one that I see a lot of people have an issue with with their skin.

A lot of times people think about sugar as it relates to weight, but it also impacts our health in so many ways. And so what happens is when we eat sugar or really anything that causes the blood sugar to rise to spike, is that when we get that increase in blood sugar that triggers an increase in insulin, which is a hormone that helps their blood sugar regulation. But with an increase in insulin that triggers excess sebum production and also androgen activity. And these are two of the big things that are known to trigger acne breakouts. So people who are prone to acne or may really wanna take a good look at how much sugar that they're eating, but also it also increases glycation issues in the body. So when we eat a lot of sugar increases, our blood sugar. Glucose can bind a collagen on our skin, making a more rigid and less elastic. So that leads to more wrinkles, premature aging, which, hey, I know that wrinkles are natural, but none of us wanna want more than we already have. Right? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. That's so powerful. You know, we don't, again, we, we think that these things just happen, but we can exacerbate the issue, especially with that sugar consumption. So that's one of the, but you know, especially you doing this work and working with patients and, and being such a impactful voice in this space, you know, the big triggers, so one of them obviously is sugar. What's, what's another one of those big triggers for breakouts and for disruptive skin quality.

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, so dairy would be another big one. And I think a lot of times people don't really believe it until they cut it out. And that's really one of the easiest things to do is if you don't believe it, try going without it. But you have to give it a good 10 days to get it out of your system. So to really eliminate sugar or dairy and to see the effect it has on your skin. It, it's a 10 day kind of thing to, to really get it outta your system. But dairy does tend to trigger acne breakouts. It's really more pro-inflammatory. It's a common food intolerance or allergen. And so it is definitely one of the biggest of the trigger foods. And then I also think that people forget that dairy comes from a lactating mammal.

In order for a mammal to lactate, she's gotta produce hormones and those hormones spill over into the milk and get into the dairy products. So even if it says no added hormones, organic, all of those great things that just the nature of it being milk is that it's going to have hormones in it. And one of the biggest underlying factors of skin issues is hormonal imbalance.

SHAWN STEVENSON: This also brings me back to something you said earlier, and I would love to hear you talk about this. You mentioned microbiome when we're talking about our skin. We know about, again, the gut microbiome, a lot of people are aware of that part of our lexicon, but our skin has a microbiome too. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, absolutely. And so in, we talk a lot about the gut microbiome, right? All these microorganisms that live in the gut and help our digestion and all these great things. But the skin also has its own array of microorganisms that live on it and protect it. And it's very different than the gut microbiome as far as the, the types of organism, microorganisms that live on our skin.

But it's also really important. And so when it gets out of balance, we can get breakouts, we can have a number of skin issues as part of the connection with leaky skin. That's our skin might start to become more damaged. It might not have that nice barrier function that it normally has. And so we also see with an impaired skin microbiome, premature aging. So it's an age accelerator as well. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: All right. So this is a great bridge that I'm seeing right now. So our skin, this microbiome of our skin is an important factor of our health. It's protective of our skin. But what happens when it gets disrupted? Right? So one of the common treatments for a variety of skin issues is antibiotics.

DR. TREVOR CATES: Mm-hmm. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So talk about that connection. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yes. And so there's a really important connection between the gut microbiome and the skin microbiome. And there's a lot of research showing the gut skin connection, the gut brain skin connection. And so when our gut gets out of balance from taking antibiotics and we, it creates dysbiosis when harmful di you know, out of balance, basically that can create an imbalance, a harmful imbalance in the skin microbiome as well. So acne breakouts, a lot of different chronic skin conditions can result from that. And so what we want to do to restore that balance is to do it both internally and externally. They're both really important.

And with my patients, I like to generally start with a big focus from the inside out, helping with the gut microbiome because a lot of these people that have that dysbiosis on their skin, it started in their gut. And again, skin is oftentimes one of these early warning signs. And so I'll see people that don't have digestive symptoms. And so they're thinking, there's nothing wrong with my gut, but I have these skin issues. But yet when we do testing on their gut health, they have gut dysbiosis. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Mm-hmm. Wow. That's a powerful association. Again, our skin is giving us this feedback. So also topically. So now looking at the other part of the microbiome, the skin microbiome being damaged. A lot of things we're putting on our skin is probably gonna be disruptive as well. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah. So a lot of using a lot of hand sanitizers, a lot of anti-microbial soaps, cleaning products for our homes. All of these things impact our skin microbiome. It's really pretty fascinating because when you think about the gut microbiome, it's contained inside our bodies, but our skin is right on the surface. And so who we live with, who we spend time with, if we have animals around us, the hygiene practices we have, what kind of products we use, all of that can disrupt our skin microbiome. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Bananas. This reminded me of a soap that I used to use because of commercial. It was like Lever 3000 or whatever it was. It was like antibacterial, antimicrobial, all these things. And it's the opposite really of what we want. It's, it's damaging my skin and potentially again, creating this leaky skin. And you just mentioned we are at an all time high of hand sanitizers. And again, there's a place for safety, you know, good hygiene, all the things. But what's really happening is we're damaging that barrier, that protective barrier, and we're literally creating this term that you shared with us today, leaky skin. We're, we're gonna end up doing the opposite thing, which we're trying to protect ourselves. We're really damaging this natural barrier that we have. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, a lot of more people are noticing eczema, getting eczema on their hands from all the hand sanitizer use, or over washing of their hands. And I know it's a tricky thing because we, we don't wanna be germophobic because there are microorganisms that actually are good for us and do protect us, but there are ones that are harmful. And so we definitely wanna find this balance. So when you, when you look at your hands, if you just use regular soap, washing your hands is actually better than using hand sanitizer when you can. And just, if you have to use hand sanitizer, just try and minimize it when you have to, but when you can just wash your hands.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, we use that hand sanitizer, you know, to the degree our hands feel numb like just, you feel all the coldness of the air. You know, it's definitely overused and it's so crazy because we can just be walking around, walking in a mall, walking through a store, and there's like hand sanitizer, pumps everywhere. And I, without fail because it's in my awareness. I spot 'em and then I see people using them. You know, they just walk, they're, they're not even thinking about it. They're not necessarily looking for someplace to sanitize their hands. They just, oh, lemme go ahead and give me a little dabble of that, you know, this microbiome destroying sanitizer, you know, because it's out here for free. So, you know, it's really important for us to be aware of this. So one of those big culprits. What about alcohol based skin products? There's, there's a lot of that even for facial cleansers. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah. So alcohol, you know, on the skin can be drying there and damaging as well. There are a number of ingredients. I think a lot of people don't really think about what's happening on the surface of their skin and that, you know, I think one of the big things that people do, and in addition to wanting to kill germs is to get rid of oils and debris and things. So another big thing that people make a mistake with are the types of cleansers that they use, that they're overdoing it, these sudsy kinds of cleansers, especially for the face.

It actually disrupts the natural oils in our skin. And so a lot of times people with oily skin wanna use more cleansers, but yet they're actually just disrupting that natural balance. And the natural oils in our skin are one of the things that helps our skin microbiome and also the pH of our skin. And that our skin does best with a mild acidity. And a lot of these cleansers soaps and FUD susy kinds of things, they actually increase the pH of our skin and throw off that natural balance. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Ah, this is blowing my mind. This is blowing my mind. It's so, again, we just, we do this stuff on a daily basis. We don't think about it. We don't think about. What's creating these actions from the products that we're using as well. So, you know, there's a variety of skin issues that people can struggle with. You mentioned things like eczema, you know, things that have an autoimmune component, acne, dry skin, excessively oily skin, and the like.

Let's talk about the standard of care right now when people are going into their dermatologist, which again, this is a valuable field of study, but oftentimes, and this is the same with our conventional medicine system right now, unfortunately, we're treating symptoms. And so some of the common things that people are using for acne, for example, might be birth control pills. So let's talk about some of the standard of care. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of women, when they go in to see their doctor and they've got acne, they are put on birth control pills to, to sort of suppress that acne breakout. And unfortunately, birth control pills come with a number of issues and they really should be reserved for birth control only and not be given to women that to manage symptoms like acne. And women are also put on them oftentimes for issues with their period, their cycles and painful periods and things. And unfortunately it further disrupts the gut microbiome, which is probably already disrupted in the first place. And that's. Partly why they have acne, most likely and hormonal imbalances.

It creates nutritional deficiencies and it suppresses certain hormones, like it suppresses testosterone, so it's going to further create imbalances with hormones. So the thing is, is in my practice, I've been seeing patients for 22 years. I see the women that wanna go off the birth control pills or that are having all the issues with them. And so they're the ones that tell me, I went off, all my symptoms, came back, and then they're dealing with all of the side effects from that medication as well. And maybe they're trying to get pregnant or they're trying to clear up their skin issues or whatever. They're trying to go about their normal lives, but yet they've created all these issues in addition to what they already had.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. This is so, I mean, so many people experience this, but you know, it's, it's become normalized, right? For just, these are quote, birth control pills, but they're being prescribed for skin issues or for managing your cycle. And I've seen the same thing repeatedly. You know, friends that have been on birth control pill for a number of years, they get off crazy outbreaks and same thing now they want to get pregnant, and it's just so much disruption that takes place. But it's become normalized for us to utilize these things as a culture and not really get the education. But, and also the reason we do it is we want a solution, you know, and that it's, it pains us sometimes, you know, especially. Our outer appearance and we look for a solution, and if we have a physician who can provide us with something that can suppress that symptom, oftentimes we'll do the thing, but we don't question what the long tail effects might be.

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah. Acne is a really challenging condition for anyone who's struggled with skin issues, especially on their face. People know how. Debilitating it can be because it's such an embarrassing thing. It's so hard to hide and it, it's just, it's something that people see every time they see you, they see the acne in your face, just like that, that guy that you were talking about that you see, and I can't begin to tell you how many patients I've had who have acne when it clears up how it's like changed their life.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

DR. TREVOR CATES: And I get it. As a child, I struggle with skin issues and I've, I have very fickle skin, so over the years I've had a, just about every skin issue and, but as a child, I had eczema and I had little bumps on my face and I was so embarrassed by my skin. I didn't feel like a normal kid. And so I really get the impact it can have psychologically and how when you're, when you're suffering with it, when you're struggling with it, you're willing to do anything to get rid of it. And if you hear from one of your friends, you know, in high school or you know, some something, oh, I got my mind cleared up 'cause I went on birth control pills. Or the doctor says, yeah this, this'll get rid of it right away. You just wanna jump at it. You don't even think about what, what's gonna be the long term consequence of this.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Oh man. And this is also bringing up, so I mentioned our skin being an extension of our nervous system. For us, to really get in touch with the fact that your thoughts, your level of stress, these things are going to affect your skin quality as well, right? 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, absolutely. It, we get caught in this vicious cycle of skin stressing us out, but then stress actually can make skin issues worse. So when we're stressed out, our adrenal hormone cortisol kicks in and with an increase in cortisol that can worsen. Inflammatory skin conditions, including acne, eczema, rosacea, some of the most common psoriasis, some of the most common skin conditions can get worse by high stress. So it's really important as part of the plan if you're, when you're looking at more of a holistic approach to skin to include mindset, stress management practices as part of treatment.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Mm. Wow. Yeah. I, I think a person or, you know, 20,000 can identify like stressful conditions bringing about issues with their skin, right? But then there's like some overarching, like even expressions of viral things like herpes virus or like shingles from stress, right? Manifesting through the skin. So again, we might tie it to that cognitively, but even if we're talking about breakouts and the like, our mood is going to our outer appearance. And so I want to ask you about what are some of the things, just, you know, simple things that we could use for our skin health, because of course we, we've talked a little bit internally and we'll get more into food in a little bit, but what about the topical treatments, right? So what about things like one ingredient, coconut oil, for example. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Okay. So coconut oil is an interesting one because it's, it's natural, it's a great oil. Some people have a hard time using straight coconut oil, especially people who are more acne prone. But we use coconut oil in the spot actors, my skincare line, but we do it with other ingredients in it to help it be a great balanced formulation. So just using coconut oil by itself may not be the best thing, especially for, for people's faces. But there are a lot of really great natural ingredients out there. And one of the biggest things I don't know that people know about is that going back to the pH of our skin and that a lot of the products that we use have a high pH.

So a pH over 5.5 is actually going to be damaging for our skin. And even water has a pH of. Seven, and that's neutral. So to help really support our skin, the health of our skin, we want skincare products, ideally in the 4.6 to five pH range, especially for our face. And the research shows that that's the sort of the magic, that sweet spot for our skin to help it with a skin microbiome, to keep it from breaking out from aging faster than it should. All of those things. So that's one of the biggest things. And a simple thing people can do is actually test the pH of their skincare products. You could just get pH strips and check and see what it is, and if it's over 5.5 or even if it's too acidic, it could be damaging. So we just, you know, that's one of the big things.

And then another big thing about skincare products is I know a lot of, a lot of companies are now making natural or hypoallergenic skincare products, or they put, contains coq 10 or contains green tea on the label. I think it's really important for people to know that there's a lack of regulations when it comes to what people manufacturers can put on the label. The words natural and hypoallergenic. Have no regulation around them, so anybody can call it their product natural. Anyone can call their product hypoallergenic, so that's not enough. You have to turn it over, look at the lay, look at the ingredients and see does it contain synthetic fragrance? Because fragrance is loaded with hormone disrupting chemicals, these are have been hormone.

These endocrine disrupting chemicals, hormone disrupting chemicals have been connected to problems with infertility, with thyroid disease, obesity, early puberty, issues with menopause, breast cancer, prostate cancer, a number really, if you think about anything having to do with their hormones, it could potentially disrupt those. Disrupt them because hormone disrupting chemicals, they bind to hormone receptors and the body and the body thinks that it's getting a hormone, and so it acts differently. And so we really want to reduce our exposure to those. So just because it says natural on the label doesn't mean that it actually is clean and non-toxic.

I feel like when it comes to skincare, two of the biggest mistakes people make and their routine, not even like talking about the ingredients and all the toxins, but cleansing and exfoliating. Those are two of the biggest mistakes people make. The cleansing we kind of talked about already, they use. They over cleanse and they strip the skin of the natural oils. But similar kind of thing with exfoliation. A lot of women are thinking, oh, I need to exfoliate every day with these big brushes and harsh exfoliations. They just like, the more I scrub, the better my skin's gonna turn all red, and that's good.

But you have, remember, our skin microbiome can be kind of delicate and these oils in our skin, the pH, all of that. So we don't wanna overdo it. Exfoliation is important, but we want to be gentle with our skin. So that's why just, you know, using some gentle exfoliation is really all you need. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. So is there anything, like, you mentioned certain sponges, for example, like is there something for us to be aware of, like with what we're using to exfoliate with.

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, so what I love to use is called a conc sponge, and it's spelled with a K, K-O-N-J-A-C. We sell 'em at the spot actor store, and they're, they're actually natural substance, they're biodegradable, and when they're, when you get them wet, they're really soft, but they still have some exfoliating properties to them. So they're, they're still gentle, but they do the job. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Got it. Got it. And you also have in here an herbal steam. Can you talk about that and what, what that would consist of? 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, absolutely. We, this is something that I just, you know, I think that there's a lot of DIY stuff people can do things at home. And a lot of women really love doing, these families love doing these. And, and so the, the steam is you get, you can either, if you have the time of year is when it's more, you have like fresh flowers and herbs, you can do it with those. Or if it's in a time of year when you're looking at more in like fall and winter, you can use dried and, and put them in water and do a steam and you can, you know, use these to really help with your skin. And it's just also just a really nice self-care practice. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So how would we do a steam, for example, like somebody who is oblivious to how that would actually work? I've done like a steam where, you know, for, you know, to, to help if somebody has a cold, for example, like a, kind of like a impromptu homemade sauna or sweat lodge, right? So you get a hot pot of water put in the middle of the floor, then have the person sit there blanket over them. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah. And you can, I mean, you can do that and it's really great for clearing the sinuses too, but it's also good for the skin. And so you can put flowers, fresh flower petals in there, like, calendula or rose petals. You can do some essential oil drops. And that can also, just as you're doing that, it steams your skin. It helps kinda soften the skin, make it more supple and hydrate it. So it's just a nice, self-care practice. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You have a lot of great, like DIY do it yourself tips in here too, cleansers, steams, and masks. So what about masks? Let's talk about that. What, what are some of the kind of DIY stuff that we can do if we. Do a mask for our face. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, and we can use a lot of things actually that we find in our kitchen. There are simple, natural ingredients that, hey, if you can eat it, you can put it on your skin and not have to worry so much about the toxicity, right? So things like honey or turmeric or even, you know, yogurt, maybe you don't want to eat, but you could put it on your skin. Even sugar is actually something that can be good in DIY skincare, but not so much internally for the skin. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: What about aloe? Aloe is one of the things over the years I every ran randomly. I'll do like a aloe mask. I usually get the aloe for like this certain drink that I make, but then I'll just like use what's on my hands and I'll just put on my face and just let it sit there for a while. 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Aloe is one of my favorite ingredients in skincare products and DIY skincare. We, we use it in the spot actor skincare products, but the best thing is to have an aloe plant, like you're saying, just take the aloe plant leaf. Get that inside that gel and use it on the skin. And a lot of people think of it for burns and scrapes, which it's really great for, but it's also just extremely hydrating for the skin, so you don't have to have a burn to put it on. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So just a little fun fact. And people have to scroll so far back on my Instagram page, because this was back, I, my, my old, my youngest son was probably maybe two or three, and he's about to turn 11 now. So I put up a before and after he fell and he had this scrape on his face. And we're just, of course we're mortified, right? Just like your little face, you know. And we used aloe and it, I had the before and after. And it is miraculous like it was as if nothing had ever happened to him. And again, it's way, way back in the day.

This is back when I barely used Instagram, so maybe I like post once a month or something like that. But if people want to check that out, maybe we'll, I'll try and wrestle it down and put it in the show notes for people to see. But it's a really special food. It's been used for thousands of years. Storied and scriptural references, all the things. So probably one of the most remarkable things about your book is you really dive in and talk about hormones. And it's such an important part of the equation, is being educated about what's happening in our bodies, which we're so again, externally focused.

And so you talk about some of the most foundational hormones that we hear about, but we don't really understand and how they impact our expression of beauty and also our feeling tone of beauty. So let's talk about a couple of them. You, you mentioned earlier, you mentioned testosterone. Right. We tend to think this is a male versus female scenario, but testosterone is important for everybody.

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah. Testosterone is important for men and women, for everyone. So is estrogen. I think a lot of, a lot of men think estrogen's not important for them, but hey, men have estrogen too. So, but of course they're different and our hormones are different. Testosterone's really important for women to give us drive and also to, you know, not only sex drive, but also just overall drive for life and energy and building muscle tone. And as we age, our testosterone starts to decline. And for women who are on birth control pills, their testosterone is suppressed. So with low testosterone, women might start to notice. They don't have the same level of energy overall drive, their libido goes down, they might notice their muscle tone is lacking.

And what's interesting is we forget sometimes there's actually muscles under the skin on our face. So if we lose muscle, we could be creating more sagging skin too. So it's, you know, people notice it with their skin as well. So testosterone's important, but we also don't want too much testosterone either, the other side of that. So what would happen with that is that women might start to develop acne. They might start to develop, like they might notice, like these kind of rogue dark hairs showing up on their face or different places that they didn't expect it. So we, it's hormones are interesting. We want them working for us, not against us.

We want 'em in the right balance. And I remember one time. Recently someone asked me, but what does hormone balance really even mean? And it's a really good question because it's not like there's that, you know, like this point that you've arrived at hormonal balance and it, you're, you're there. It, our hormones change throughout the day for women throughout the month, throughout our lives, throughout the seasons. And so it's this constant thing that we just need to be infl with. But being aware of how they impact our health is really important. And I think most people don't realize how much hormones play a role in our health. And, you know, testosterone is certainly one, and a lot of people think of sex hormones like testosterone, but there's thyroid hormone, adrenal hormones, there's insulin, which works, helps with our blood sugar. We have leptin, ghrelin help with our appetite. We have melatonin that helps with our sleep. We have so many hormones. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Well, this leads right into. Something else I wanted to ask you about, which is, you know, we already discussed how our skin is really the outermost portion of what's happening internally. It's giving us this great feedback. Our skin is made from the food that we eat. What are some of your favorite beauty supportive foods? 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Yeah, absolutely. So we talked about some of the foods that aren't particularly great for skin, and I do wanna first mention with, when it comes to food, I don't think there's anything such a, such a thing as a bad food or a good food. It's just there are certain foods that tend to be trigger for certain skin issues, and there are other foods that are more. Just supportive for our bodies and for our skin. So no food shaming here, but there are certain powerhouse foods. When we think about skin, one of the most important nutrients or things that we wanna get is antioxidants.

Antioxidants help protect against free radical damage that is associated with free radical damage associated with accelerated aging, cancer. So we definitely want to get antioxidants in our food. We can also get antioxidants in skincare products too, but anything colorful, fruits and vegetables, colorful berries, for example, can be great for getting those antioxidant. Another antioxidant I really like comes actually in wild salmon Astaxanthin is a really powerful antioxidant that helps protect the skin from the inside out. And that pink color of salmon is one of the things that indicates that it has astaxanthin and it shellfish also have astaxanthin. And so these things can be really powerful for helping us with our skin.

Also, another thing that while Alaskan salmon would have is omega threes. We need these good fats for our skin and we talk a lot about hydration when it comes to skin. You know, how do you hydrate your skin? But some of that hydration comes from the inside out. Not just drinking water, but also getting healthy fats. Our skin really needs those beneficial fats, essential fatty acids. A lot of people end up with essential fatty acid deficiencies, which lead to dry skin, skin issues. And so getting those healthy fats is also also really important. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, so we've got antioxidants coming from berries. We've got wild salmon with astaxanthin omega threes. We've got healthy oils coming from olive oil and avocado oil. Is there anything else? Any other of your favorite beauty supportive foods? 

DR. TREVOR CATES: Anything that's collagen rich are things that support our collagen are also gonna be beneficial. So, bone broth, you know, gelatin, those are rich in collagen. And also anything that is rich in Vitamin C is going to help support our collagen production naturally.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I hope that you enjoyed that first segment. I've got so much more in store for you. Now the last thing that Dr. Trevor Cates shared was that vitamin C has a powerful effect in helping to increase your collagen production naturally. This is so powerful, it cannot be overstated, and you're actually gonna hear even more about vitamin C from our next beauty and skin expert. But I wanted to share this study with you as well. A 2017 study published in the Journal Nutrient States, "normal skin contains high concentrations of vitamin C, which supports stimulating collagen synthesis and assisting in antioxidant protection against UV induced photo damage." Several other studies affirm that vitamin C helps to reduce skin irritations, sagging skin, and it's even a key element in what we refer to as brightening of the skin or having that "healthy glow".

Now, most people still don't know that the majority of vitamin C supplements on the market are made from genetically modified corn syrup and corn starch. Now, does that sound like high integrity sources of nutrition to you? And that's why the only vitamin C supplement that I use is the essential C complex from Paleovalley. It's made from real vitamin C rich superfoods with no binders, no fillers, and no unnecessary ingredients. And I've been utilizing it for years. And right now, if you go to paleovalley.com/model, you're going to get 15% off their phenomenal essential C Formula. Plus all of their other superfood supplements and snacks as well. Again, vitamin C is critical in our skin health and our health overall. So definitely pop over there and check them out. Paleovalley.com/model. That's P-A-L-L-E-O-V-A-L-L-E y.com/model for 15% off.

And next up in this Healthy Skin Masterclass is the incredible Dr. Anthony Youn. Known as America's Holistic plastic Surgeon, anthony Youn MD is a nationally recognized. Board certified plastic surgeon and bestselling author. He's the most followed plastic surgeon on social media. And what makes him unique is that he advocates for his followers and his patients to make smart lifestyle and mindset changes first, before jumping into invasive procedures. And in this powerful segment, he's gonna be sharing with you the five main factors that contribute to skin aging, why your diet is the most important factor in determining your skin health, how to take advantage of autophagy to improve the health of your skin. A simple yet effective skincare routine for anyone and so much more. Enjoy this segment with the one and only Dr. Anthony Youn. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So 70 to 80% of our skin is composed of collagen. Collagen is that part of your skin that cause your skin to feel tight, to feel thick, and to feel strong. And when we're younger, our skin has a lot of collagen. It's nice and tight and smooth. And the way I describe it, it's kinda like the logs of a log cabin. And when you're younger, that log cabin is new. The logs are strong, they're shiny, they're smooth. But as we get older, starting about in our mid to late twenties, we start losing about 1% of the thickness of our collagen every year.

Women after menopause, that increases to upwards of 2% a year. And that's why you see some women who are in their sixties and seventies and eighties who have tissue paper, thin skin, so thin that sometimes they can get a scratch and it tears their skin. You don't see this as much in men because they don't go through that menopause process. And so really focusing on the collagen is a huge part of slowing down that aging process when you're looking at the skin and the external visible effects of overall aging. And where does that start with? Well, collagen is a large protein. And so in order for us to retain that collagen slow, that collagen degradation down, you want to definitely have enough protein in your diet.

The way I look at a overall aging of the skin is I focus on five main factors that really contribute to it. The first is gonna be nutrient depletion. You know, so once again, our food and that being a huge part of this, the foundation of that house is not as nutritious as it used to be. There was a study that looked from between 1950 and 1999 and found a sig significant reduction in the nutritional content quality of our food in six different nutrients. Specifically three, three that stood out to me were vitamin C, iron, and protein. So nutrient depletion is a huge cause of aging in the skin. Second thing I mentioned just a minute ago was collagen degradation, that also big component of it diet can have a big impact on that. Third thing is inflammation, specifically chronic inflammation.

Now there's a difference between acute inflammation and chronic inflammation. Acute inflammation can actually be very, very beneficial for us. You know, when you get a cut on your skin and your body creates acute inflammation on that cut to help heal it, that's actually a good thing. Cosmetic treatments, laser treatments, chemical peels, microneedling, those are all creating acute inflammation. And kind of like the whole concept of hormesis, the body reacts to acute inflammation or acute trauma by actually becoming stronger after it heals that. So, but chronic inflammation is a whole other story, and that is a big nature of our skin. The fourth cause of aging of the skin that we focus on is gonna be oxidation or free radicals.

And then the fifth cause of that is gonna be a buildup of cellular waste. And so by focusing on these different things, diet being a huge part of it, but once again, what you eat, when you eat supplements, skincare products and treatments, we can, we can really target all five of those to efficiently reverse that and allow our body to once again regenerate itself.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, so I, this just immediately made me think about a, just a basic skin scrub, right? And just, it, it is something that creates inflammation temporarily.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: It can.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But your skin ends up looking so much healthier and brighter and all these things. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So basically all of the skin rejuvenating treatments that are actually trying to tighten your skin are all based off of traumatizing your skin to a certain amount. And by doing that, essentially it's like you take those logs that start to fall apart, and as those logs, the, the collagen heals itself. It heals itself in a tighter fashion. And so with lasers, it does it using light energy or heat with chemical peels, it does it using an acid. With microneedling, it does it using a physical poke or needle in poke into the skin.

And all of these will then cause a controlled trauma and, and your skin will rebound by, by actually looking and feeling more youthful. The problem is, is you have to be careful because if that trauma is too aggressive, then you get scarring. And that you definitely do not want. And so it's, you know, it's the same thing when you're looking at hormesis. You know, if you are doing a cold plunge, then you can do that for a period of time, but if you're in it for too long, you could get really, you know, ill from that, you know, your body temperature go to a level that can be very harmful for you. And so we look at in some ways, at, at these cosmetic treatments, the same way. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, if you think about this, and this is tying back to the skin differences between men and women. You know, some women can have 20 different skincare products while their husband is like washing his balls with the soap. He's washing his face with, you know, the same thing. And it's just like, his skin looks amazing after, you know, whatever, you know, in his sixties or whatever. And we're, we're negating some of these other lifestyle factors because it's not just the topical thing and having great topical applications is, is important. And this is what I want to ask you about. Before we switch gears and kind of talk a little bit more about the internal, but alcohol based skincare products like, can you talk a little bit about that? 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah. So, back in the, I mean really up until recently, a lot of us thought that using astringent alcohol based toners and products like that were actually good for us. One thing that we are finding, we're kind of with the skin where we were with the gut maybe 20 years ago, where we discovered that there's this thing called a gut microbiome. And most traditional physicians kind of ignored that. Whereas the forward-leaning, holistic, you know, practitioners were talking about it. And now we know that the skin has the same thing. We have a skin microbiome, we have billions of bacteria that live on the surface of our skin. And those bacteria do exert some type of impact on the health of our skin. Now we're very early in our knowledge of it. We don't know just how important they are.

You know, we know with the gut, the gut microbiome, it has massive impacts on your overall body's health. I don't know that the skin microbiome is quite that important, but we do know that, that when you disrupt that skin microbiome. Same thing can happen when you disrupt the gut microbiome. So using, let's say a lot of alcohol where you're literally killing off, you're stripping away that healthy bacteria, you can have unhealthy bacteria that potentially can go in its place. And so it is really important. You know, one of the big things over the last few years that has been a trend with skincare has been preserving the skin barrier. And essentially meaning that you leave that gut bacteria or that probiotics, those beneficial microbiome, that bacteria on the surface of your skin, you leave it alone and let it kind of do its thing. And so trying less aggressive treatments overall and not stripping your skin of that microbiome is actually really important. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. There's two things that are similar with the microbes in the gut and the skin. These microbes are producing compounds. This is one of the things we don't understand yet, but like, what are they producing? But we know that this tends to have some kind of a protective effect. And the other part is having the protective effect, which is protecting our skin from pathogens, things like certain things can make it through your skin and make you sick or cause an infection. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And so if we're stripping away our protection haphazardly and you just mentioned it because I remember not that long ago using alcohol-based stuff, you know, myself trying to have healthier skin when I was like, you know, in, in college.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And you know, thankfully that has changed, but even more so thankfully for your work to like educate us on, it's more than just the topical thing. We've gotta look at this from the inside out. And I wanna ask you about this specifically because you go into detail with all of the things you mentioned. But cellular waste jumped out in particular. So how do we support this kind of metabolic waste removal? So that our skin is getting clogged up and backed up.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So to simplify it essentially is that being alive. We have cells that will create waste products. And these waste products are organelles, they're proteins. They may be discarded, used up kind of mitochondria. And these, this waste product can build up in our, in our cells especially like our skin cells. And when these, the cellular waste builds up, it causes our cells to essentially function less efficiently, as if you are older. And the way that our cells then clear out this intracellular waste is a process called autophagy. Autophagy means selfe. You've brought it up on the podcast before. But essentially self eating.

It's a recycling of these intracellular, of this intracellular waste. These intracellular proteins, they're essentially gunking up the mechanism. You recycle it for energy, and then what happens is that the cells function more efficiently afterwards as if they're more youthful. But the problem is for autophagy to work for this intracellular recycling process to happen, your body has to run out of energy essentially so that it looks to that intracellular waste for energy 'cause if it's being fed energy constantly, it won't necessarily go into that process, that autophagy process 'cause it doesn't need it. Well, in our standard American diet and our standard American lifestyle, we are not used to not eating. You know, I mean, we are constantly snacking and eating all day in general, and so that does not allow that process of autophagy to occur.

On top of that, we also know that as you get older. Like so many things in life, autophagy slows down, naturally it slows down. And so it is definitely important for us as we get older to keep that in mind and to try to get that autophagy process going. And the way to do that, essentially simply put, is to stop eating for a while. Okay? And so the easiest way to do it is to intermittent fast. If you take start, start off, if you haven't done much of it before, just start off by doing a 12 hour fast. So maybe you stop eating at 8:00 PM and then you don't eat until 8:00 AM the next morning. If you can get yourself to it, try to do a 16 hour fast where you stop eating at 8:00 PM and then you don't eat again until the next day at about noon.

Getting that 16 hour fast gives your body time for it to then use that intracellular waste products in that process of autophagy. And to seriously turn back the clock on the inside with our cells. Now, one thing that we did in the book is that we've got a three week jumpstart where we took people and we had them on a certain diet. We cleaned up their diet. We had them on certain supplements. We had them take and use certain skincare products. In week one, we had them basically just clean up their diet and then do the supplements. In the skincare weeks two and three, we added two days each week of intermittent fasting where they stopped eating at 8:00 PM and then they didn't eat until noon the next day.

And then what we did, which I haven't seen done before, is that when they started refeeding at noon, the next day they, for the rest of that day, they ate a diet that could promote autophagy. You know, one thing that we have learned is that there are certain foods that can promote the autophagy process, even though you're not fasting. And those foods are healthy fats. So Omega-3 fatty, acid rich foods, so like cold water, fish, like tuna, trout, salmon. And then foods that are filled with polyphenols, polyphenol rich foods also great for autophagy. So now you're looking at bright and dark colored berries, green leafy vegetables, darker colored vegetables as well. And the idea is that you can hopefully continue that autophagy process for a total, for a good 24 hours and not leave it at just that 16. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So good. So good. And the polyphenols and a lot of these things have multifactorial benefit, like the polyphenols are great for your gut and all the things.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Oh yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And you know, this gut skin connection, I think more science is gonna come out, kind of fleshing that out. As you mentioned, you know, talking to a gastroenterologist like about your skin, like, you know, fix the gut. And also Hippocrates, you know, famously he didn't tell me personally, you know, but..

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: I mean we're, but we're not that old.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Whenever we say these quotes, I'm just like, ah. But you know, his, his story that he said that all disease begins in the gut. And in particular, he was really renowned for treating skin issues. And certain things weren't involved in his practice part, part of it was fasting. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Mm-hmm. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: And he also used something he called serum, which is whey protein, funny enough. But it was like a topical treatment.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Okay.

SHAWN STEVENSON: As well. It's like, it's all these fascinating things and you hear these things and our system is supposed to be inspired by the father of modern medicine, but then we forget, like to take care of the gut. And so the polyphenols is huge. So if you could, for everybody, just kind of across the board, what are some of the recommendations as far as a skincare routine. Just some basic things that we could all do to have healthier, younger, fresher looking skin. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So one of the things that we did for the book is that we really simplified the skincare routine down. Because it is very confusing when you go to the store and like, this product's better than Botox. This one is the latest, you know, best thing for your skin. What do you do? So we basically, I put together a very simple skincare routine that anybody can do and we found that, that it takes literally two minutes a day and we tested people on it. People who weren't necessarily taking good care of their skin before, but they also weren't horribly aged or anything.

And we put them on it for two months and then we actually took before and after photos. And we asked people online, how much younger do they look? And it turns out that they looked an average of about five years younger. So we called it the two minutes, five years younger skincare routine. And it's very simple. Every morning you cleanse your skin with a cleanser appropriate for your skin type. So if you've got oily skin, I recommend a foaming cleanser. If you've got like drier or sensitive skin, then a more milky or hydrating cleanser is better. Second step, you apply an antioxidant serum. I mentioned earlier, one of the main ages of our skin is oxidation and free radicals.

Antioxidants neutralize free radicals. So, so important to use a vitamin C or an antioxidant serum every morning to protect your skin. And then I recommend if you're gonna be out to wear sunscreen, at least an SPF 30, and we can talk about sunscreens in the future if you, or if you want. That's all you have to do in the morning. Cleanser antioxidant serum sunscreen, if you're gonna be out. In the evening, cleanse your skin. So important. If you only wash your face once a day, make sure it's in the evening 'cause you gotta get rid of that day's worth of dirt and dust and grime and pollution. And if you're wearing makeup, you wanna get rid of that as well.

And then you wanna apply an anti-aging cream. The one that most dermatologists and plastic surgeons recommend, super easy to find is a retinol. Retinol is a derivative of vitamin A. Prescription strength retinol is retin A over the counter strength is retinol. Some people try to go for the Retin A. Retin A has been very scientifically proven to improve wrinkles, to smooth the skin, to exfoliate the skin, to thicken the dermis of the skin, the deeper layers of the skin, and even reverse early pre-scan cancers.

So it kind of does everything, but it's hard on your skin. And so the retinol is the over the counter version that most people can tolerate. And that's all you have you do at night. Cleanse your skin, apply retinol. If you've got dry skin and you wanna add a moisturizer on top of that, feel free to do that. But a moisturizer does not reverse aging of the skin. It just is hydrating and makes it more comfortable. And then the final thing is, once a week, if you have sensitive skin two to three times a week, if you've got "normal skin", you want to exfoliate your skin. You can do that with a gentle scrub, or you can do that with, let's say an alpha hydroxy acid type of appeal.

That's all you have to do. You know, simple steps. You can buy these products at your local drugstore. Ideally I always encourage people to buy clean beauty, so it's something that doesn't have added fragrances and additives that aren't necess, necessary for that. But if you stick to that type of a skincare regimen, you're gonna be way ahead of probably 90% of people out there.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I love that. And I love the little note about the exfoliation to not overdo it, you know?

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Give your skin a chance to heal. It's like a little exercise. The hormetic stressor, allowing it to heal. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yes. If you are exfoliating your skin and you find that it's constantly irritated and red, you are overdoing it, do less of that.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Okay. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Definitely. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You've mentioned a particular nutrient, which might be surprising for skin health a couple of times now. Vitamin C.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, we tend to think about it in this like vanilla lens of like, good for your immune system. But it's this powerful antioxidant and it's. One of those things that is required by your skin as well for general health and and resilience. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah, I mean it honestly, it goes back to, you know, our middle school and high school science classes where we were taught the importance of vitamin C in collagen and scurvy. How there were these sailors that would go for these extended trips. So when they ran out of fresh fruits and vegetables, they ran out of vitamin C, and then they would get these sores in their mouth and on their skin because vitamin C is absolutely essential for collagen production.

So on top of that, it also is a very powerful antioxidant. It's the easiest antioxidant to get both by mouth as well as topically on the surface of your skin. But here's a little tip for the listeners if you want to take that to the next level. If you add vitamin C and vitamin E together, there was a study that found that they are synergistic and you get an even better antioxidant protection if you use vitamin C and E combined. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes. There's actually a study that I cited in one of my books looking at vitamin C and E, improving sleep quality.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Oh wow.

SHAWN STEVENSON: As well. You know, and in particular reducing the symptoms of sleep apnea. Oh, interesting. Like who knew?

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You know, very, very powerful. But again, when we look at these things in just one way, you know, get tunnel vision with it, we miss out on real food, real nutrients are great for your whole body in many ways. Yep. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah. So, and they can make big changes. I think that people poo p it. I mean, I'm still a surgeon and I know that there are certain things that you just have to have surgery for if you want to get there. You know, if you've lost a hundred pounds and you've got skin hanging from your body, yeah. There's no food you're gonna eat that's gonna make and go away. There's no chemical peel that will do that. Unfortunately, the only option is surgery. But outside of, you know, kind of more extreme type cases, you know, most of these types of things we can really treat pretty effectively without going under the knife.

SHAWN STEVENSON: We are living in the future right now, you know, and there are some really cool innovations that are non-invasive or minimally invasive, like red light therapy. Can you talk a little bit about that? What is your, what is your perspective on that? 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So interesting. Red light therapy is something where if you talk to a plastic surgeon, they may look at you with a blank stare 'cause we don't talk about it in plastic surgery at all. Dermatologists know, know a decent amount of it. And then alternative health experts are all about red light therapy. So the idea behind red light therapy essentially is a, is the energy from that red light will be infused into your cells. So for the skin, it would be your skin cells. And essentially what it does, your, your mitochondria takes up that energy and it powers a mitochondria, which are the powerhouses of your cells. And it causes a mitochondria, we believe to increase its production of ATP. So essentially you are taking your cells and you're adding energy to them, making them more, more energetic and essentially more youthful.

So red light therapy devices for the skin can occur in a different, different types. There's handheld devices that are kind of a pain 'cause you treat a quadrant of your face at a time usually. There are tabletop devices which are nice and square and you can treat the whole face at one time, which are, which is really convenient. There are creepy looking Hannibal Lecter type masks that you can wear around and scare your significant other while you wear it. And then there are whole red light therapy beds that some people use as well. So what does the science say about red light therapy? Basically there are studies split face studies where they split the face in half and they treat one side of the face with a sham light and the other side of the face with red light.

And have found after about 90 days of treatment, an improvement in wrinkles, hydration and skin elasticity. So it definitely works. We think it works once again by kind of adding energy to the mitochondria of our cells, although it's not 100% been proven to my understanding. Good thing with red light therapy, no downtime. You know, if you wanna start with something that is a great place to start. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Awesome. Awesome. Okay. A lot of our health has to do with not doing certain things. All right. Are there anything, let's talk just from the lens of nutrition.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Things that we might want to avoid.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: That can be contributing to degradation of our health, accelerated aging, things like that.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So I mentioned earlier that there are these five causes of the aging of the skin, nutrient depletion, collagen degradation, chronic inflammation, oxidation and buildup of cellular waste. When you look at inflammation, the main cause of chronic inflammation of the skin is sugar. And so reducing the amount of sugar that you eat because sugar can actually bond to the collagen of your skin. And I mentioned earlier that our collagen, it's like the logs of a log cabin. As we get older, those logs become fray, they start to fall apart. What sugar will do is it will actually bond to the collagen fibers. They actual collagen, it will bond to it and cause that collagen to become permanently kinked.

So it's not that tight log in a log cabin anymore. It's kinked that is prematurely aging to the skin. And so that process creates advanced glycation end products. That's the term for those collagen sugar hybrids, those connections. So sugar creates chronic inflammation, so reduce the amount of sugar. Super important. I know you've been great with educating people on that. And then the other group, the other thing that we look at with oxidation, we talked about how antioxidants fight oxidation and are so healthy for our skin. But what, where do, what does it fight? It fights free radicals. And where do free radicals come from?

Well, free radicals are created by our body. Just being alive, our body's metabolism creates free radicals as a waste product. And these free radicals, when they are numerous, can actually damage the DNA of our cells, of our skin cells, let's say. And so antioxidants will neutralize free radicals, but if you have too many free radicals that are attacking your body, we don't have enough antioxidants to support that or to neutralize them. That's when you get DNA damage and you get premature aging. So where do you get free radicals from? Well, you can get 'em from pollution in the air. You can get it from, let's say, cigarette smoking from automobile exhaust. But you can also get it from ultra processed foods. So ultra processed foods, especially if they're fried, like deep fried foods, are filled with free radicals. And so reducing the amount of ultra processed foods or even eliminating them is a great way to improve the health of your skin. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: So you're saying McDonald's french fries? 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: As good as they may taste going down are, are quite possibly the worst food for your skin? Maybe not the worst, because probably the worst would be if they smother them in sugar. So yeah, I would say maybe a donut might be worse than the fries, but that's all the same idea, you know? And there are those foods that not only, you know, have sugar, but they also are ultra processed. You know, like, dessert stuff that you buy, you know, that's packaged in boxes that you buy at the grocery store. Those could be potentially the worst. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. I went to a carnival recently and they were literally deep frying everything. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yeah. Yeah. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: One deep fried Snickers, deep fried Oreos. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Have you seen the deep fried butter? There is deep fried butter out there that they sell house way.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow. That's, that's something else.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Deep fried sticks of butter.

SHAWN STEVENSON: All right.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: It's probably not grassfed butter, I doubt. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. I want to ask you about this because you know this, you said this term several times. It's super important. Again, it's the majority of what we're seeing when we see our skin in the mirror in CO with collagen. There are a lot of different collagen products on the market now.

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And there's some controversy around that. Let's talk a little bit about that. 

DR. ANTHONY YOUN: So, yeah, I mean, if it's funny 'cause I will post occasionally on social media about collagen supplements and invariably I get a ton of comments of, I asked my family doctor about collagen supplements and he said that, that doesn't work. There actually is a doctor that I respect on online. He's a weight loss surgeon and he's got a big bushy beard and he talks with a lot of authority when he speaks. He's probably in his sixties and he seems very well read and, and all that. And he made a video a couple years ago about collagen supplements and saying, you know, basically collagen supplements don't work.

If you really want to take collagen, collagen supplement, save your money and buy jello gelatin. It's the same thing. And I thought, oh geez. But the funny thing, shawn, is that just a few weeks ago, he made a new video and he's watching the old video about collagen. He swipes it away and he goes, you know, some of us physicians, we make decisions and we have opinions based off of the available evidence at that time.

And the available evidence is now telling me that collagen supplements do work. I was wrong and I thought, oh my gosh. Here is a doctor, who's in his probably sixties, who speaks with such authority and he's so sure of his and he of his opinion, and he says it's wrong. So what does the science say about collagen supplements? You know, we take collagen supplements. People take it for the health of their hair, their skin, their nails, their bones. That's type one collagen. The science, basically, the studies look at it, are all pretty conclusive. I mean, people may say that they're not, but if you actually look at the studies, there are so many studies that support the use of collagen supplements.

So for example, there was a meta-analysis in 2021, they looked at over 1100 people taking 90 days of a hydrolyzed collagen supplement, and found after 90 days a statistically significant improvement in wrinkles and hydration and elasticity of the skin. And that's over 1100 people. There have been prospective randomized, placebo controlled clinical trials that have been performed where people take, let's say 90 days or two months of collagen.

A peptide supplements hydrolyzed collagen and have found, after they actually biopsy their skin, that there is an increased amount of collagen in that skin biopsy. So there is a ton of research to support the use of collagen and it improving the skin. Hence that doctor going back and saying, look, I was wrong. I think in the end with collagen supplements, there are a lot of people out there who are just antis supplement period. And, and the way I describe it, it's people who don't know what they don't know. And I've been at that point, you know, when I was early on in my career and I was a very traditional plastic surgeon, I didn't know what I didn't know.

And then I realized that there was a lot I didn't know and I needed to learn that. And so that's kind of how I look at it with collagen. I think the important thing, if you're gonna try a collagen supplement, a couple of things. First thing, make sure it's hydrolyzed collagen peptides. Collagen is a huge protein and the argument is that how do you know, number one, that your body will actually, that your GI tract will absorb the collagen protein 'cause it's so huge. And how do you know it's gonna get to your skin? Well, we know it gets to the skin by those studies I've mentioned to you. But we also know that that good collagen companies that that produce these supplements will break that large protein down into individual amino acids and peptides. And that process is called hydrolysis, it basically hydrolyzes the collagen makes it much smaller.

So that's what you wanna look for. And then the second thing is that there are five types of collagen out there. Okay? Type one is hair, skin, nails, and bone. Type two is joints. Type three is muscle, type four is in the kidneys, and type five is placenta. So four and five we don't really pay much attention to. But let's say if you've got joint issues, you don't wanna take a beauty collagen that only contains collagen type one 'cause that's not gonna help the cartilage. If you've got hair issues, you don't wanna take one that's just type two 'cause that doesn't have the right collagen. So you really wanna make sure that it has the right type of collagen for what you're looking for. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I hope that you enjoyed that segment with the amazing Dr. Anthony Youn, and if you love to hear the full interviews with both of these amazing physicians and researchers will have those for you in the show notes. But what I wanted to do again, was to put together a masterclass focus specifically on skin health. Hopefully you've got some practical tips that you could implement for yourself starting right now. Listen, we have got some amazing, amazing shows in store for you. Some mind blowing guests and some powerful masterclasses that you're not gonna want to miss.

So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to the model health show.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes. You can find transcriptions videos for each episode. And if you got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome. And I appreciate that so much and take care, I promise, to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.