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Found: One Unexpected Way To Reduce Inflammation & Heal Your Skin

Hannah Frye
Author:
December 19, 2022
Hannah Frye
Beauty & Health Editor
By Hannah Frye
Beauty & Health Editor
Hannah Frye is the Beauty & Health Editor at mindbodygreen. She has a B.S. in journalism and a minor in women’s, gender, and queer studies from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Hannah has written across lifestyle sections including beauty, women’s health, mental health, sustainability, social media trends, and more. She previously worked for Almost 30, a top-rated health and wellness podcast. In her current role, Hannah reports on the latest beauty trends and innovations, women’s health research, brain health news, and plenty more.
Image by ohlamour studio / Stocksy
December 19, 2022
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Just as your body needs a day (or more) of rest and recovery to perform its best, your skin needs a similar break, too. It's important to cycle through your active ingredients, like retinol and chemical exfoliants, and schedule in at least one day when your skin can simply heal.

In order to get the most out of your rest-and-recovery day, you should work from within, too. The goal: reduce inflammation to foster a healthy environment for healing. Here's one step you might not have heard of yet.

One key ingredient to ingest: CoQ10. 

"[Reducing] oxidative stress can accelerate wound healing," board-certified dermatologist Hadley King, M.D., previously told mbg. To lower oxidative stress in the body, we look to antioxidants.

The risk of chronic inflammation is reason enough to prioritize antioxidants, but "at its worst, oxidative [stress] can also damage DNA and cause pre-cancers and cancers," board-certified dermatologist Kenneth Mark, M.D., notes. That's why ingesting antioxidants is about so much more than skin aesthetics—but a glowing complexion certainly never hurts.

CoQ10 is one of the most potent antioxidants found in your cells, skin cells included. As you age, though, natural CoQ10 levels begin to dip, which is why refilling your bank is so important.

And while you can find CoQ10 in some foods—like fish, peanuts, and broccoli—it's difficult to get enough through the diet. In fact, only about 25% of your CoQ10 levels1 come from food intake.

One way to ensure you're getting enough is through potent supplements. A few high-quality beauty supplements include this gold-standard ingredient, so here's a list of our go-to picks for glowing skin. Just make sure to keep an eye out for CoQ10 in its most bioavailable form, ubiquinol CoQ10.

And if you want to take your skin health a step further, use CoQ10 as a topical antioxidant as well. In an animal study2, topical CoQ10 facilitated collagen formation and reduced inflammation during healing. Another animal study3 found similar results, observing a link between faster wound healing and CoQ10 application. And though more human studies are necessary, CoQ10 is anecdotally reported to be a stellar treatment for wound management.

The bottom line? Using CoQ10 in your topical and supplement routines will serve you well.

The takeaway. 

If you want to supercharge your skin's recovery power, opt for potent antioxidants like CoQ10. This powerhouse ingredient has been shown to combat oxidative stress, which, in turn, fosters a healthy environment for skin healing. Plus, topical CoQ10 speeds up the process even more. Again, just be sure to look for ubiquinol CoQ10 in your supplements—here's why the distinction matters.

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