A holistic approach to well-being should be the gold standard of any aesthetic consultation as a healthy healing response is the best starting point and requires good cellular health.
The British Society of Lifestyle Medicine (BSLM) bases its advice on 6 pillars:
These are: healthy eating, mental well-being, healthy relationships, physical activity, minimising harmful substances and sleep.
It recommends eating more fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds; beans and legumes & advises the avoidance of ultra-processed food, if choosing meat and fish. It suggests unprocessed forms with fewer hormones and additives as well as wholegrain or wholemeal varieties of starchy foods such as rice, pasta and bread.
The BSLM prioritises the importance of physical activity, with regular exercise helping us to live longer, reduce periods of ill health and increase the all-important “health span”.
Exercise releases the body’s own “feel good” hormones: endorphins and enkephalins, enhancing mood and reducing depression. It also improves blood flow to the skin, improving skin quality.
We know that sun damage contributes to the biggest proportion (approx. 90%) of extrinsic skin ageing (ageing affected by external influences) known as “photo- ageing”.
Harmful social habits such as smoking and alcohol also increase cellular (and skin) ageing by accelerating the formation of free radicals.
Free radicals are formed naturally in the body by normal physiological processes such as breathing and can be mopped up by the body’s own reparative mechanisms. However, this process can soon be overwhelmed if additional free radicals are added to the mix from sun damage, smoking and excessive alcohol.
Current research into anti-ageing medicine is looking at different ways of combating cellular ageing by addressing the 9 hallmarks of ageing (see blog on longevity medicine and https://nuchido.co.uk/ for more information on this topic).
