What I Tell My Patients To Eat For Clear, Glowing Skin: A Hormone Expert Shares

Dr. Sara Gottfried is a Harvard-trained MD, bestselling author, and leading expert on hormones. That's why were thrilled to team up with her for a new series this week on balancing your hormones for better health. If you're inspired to learn more, check out her new course, How To Balance Your Hormones For Glowing Skin, Deeper Sleep & Better Digestion.

In functional medicine, symptoms are divine messages from the body. It’s our job together to decode them, not rush to a new pill or cream. We need to identify the root cause and then create a protocol to heal that cause.

The same rule applies whether the issue is acne, eczema, rosacea, wrinkles, weight gain, rapid aging, or diabetes. The skin is a mirror of the gut and mind. Symptoms of zits, redness, inflammation, dry skin, brittle nails, and tangled hair point to an imbalance that yearns to be addressed.

Food is information, a code interpreted by your gut, cells, immune system, and DNA. In simplest terms, functional medicine seeks to add inputs that create balance and remove inputs that take the body out of balance. Most of us need more minerals and antioxidants to keep our skin gorgeous and radiant, reflecting an inner state of harmony. Plain and simple, minerals detoxify you, and most of us are low in the key minerals for the skin, including zinc, sulfur, and silica.

How do you know? Take a good look in a mirror with natural light. Gently pinch your skin. If it doesn’t bounce back, your collagen may be lacking, leading to poor elasticity. If you see redness and bloating in your face, you may be inflamed. If you have zits, you may be zinc deficient. If that information makes you want to go eat carbs, you are almost certainly mineral deficient!

Zinc is essential to more than 300 enzymes in the body, affects more than 2,000 factors controlling your DNA expression, and works synergistically with vitamins to build supple skin and strong hair. That makes zinc a powerful ally in creating smoother, glowing skin.

It helps the body make new collagen and remove damaged collagen, so it’s a powerful nutrient in the prevention of wrinkles, stretch marks, sun damage, inflammation (acne, rosacea), pigmentary disorders (melasma), infection (warts), and hair loss. Many people who suffer with acne are deficient in zinc, and dermatologists have used zinc therapy internally and externally for centuries.

I take an agnostic view of diet: You don’t need to be plant-based or Paleo or an omnivore to benefit from functional medicine and my recommendations. I’m married to an environmentalist, but we eat some meat once or twice per week. I have a gene that helps me lose weight when I eat more fish, but I also like bison and organic tempeh (fermented soybeans).

I firmly believe that taking the time to heal your inner ecosystem will enhance your outer beauty. It’s an investment worth making!