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Dr. Eric Berg DC — The #1 Deficiency behind Aging Spots. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
It's a lack of this one mineral that's causing your aging spots. Now, what's an aging spot? Aging spots are also called liver spots, which are not really caused by the liver necessarily, but if you have a bad liver, you probably have similar skin problems. So today, I'm going to talk about where they come from, how do they get rid of them? Why do they develop kind of patches around different places in your body? Are they dangerous? Are they going to turn into skin cancer? I'm going to cover all that. 90% of everyone over the age of 60 has these blemishes. So I am 59. I have something to look forward to next year. What we're really dealing with with this darkened spot is melanin. Melanin is a pigment that's behind the color of your skin, the color of your hair, the color of your eyes. And one of the big purposes of melanin is to protect you against a certain type of radiation called UV radiation. Because UV can create damage in our skin cells, especially the
DNA, our body has created over a long period of time this umbrella that is a protective thing against the cells to protect the DNA against damage. And so one of the big things that will trigger more melanin production is more UV radiation. The catch 22 is that we also make vitamin D through this UV radiation when it hits our skin. And so melanin is a pigment. It's like a natural sunscreen. It blocks UV. And that's going to also block your production of vitamin D. Now, one of the problems with these blemishes is the treatment that you get when you go to the doctor. They'll do all sorts of chemical treatments, bleaching treatments, laser treatments, synthetic vitamin A, all these different remedies which have side effects. But don't worry, I'm going to give you a natural solution that does not have any side effects. Another interesting point about melanin
is that it's not necessarily evenly distributed through your skin. There are certain areas that have more than others. Why is it when someone is younger and they're exposed to the sun, they don't necessarily get those little blotches all through the face, those aging spots or liver spots. Yet when we get older, we have more of those. Why is that? And that's because as our skin ages, it becomes less efficient in regulating melanin. And so we really get this overcompensation where our body actually makes more melanin in certain spots and not others. And one of the things I want to bring up right now is that when you get UV radiation on your skin, you're getting a lot of free radical damage. Another term for that is oxidative stress. Probably didn't help you understand it. But it's basically a type of stress that occurs at the cellular level. And so both from our diet, we have antioxidants. And also from our body, we make any accidents to help neutralize
all of that oxidative stress. But the reason I wanted to bring up this word oxidative stress is because oxidative stress is another trigger of melanin. It increases more pigmentation just like UV radiation. And there's other things that can create more pigmentation as well. One thing is when you go through pregnancy, you have a higher amount of estrogen and progesterone. That can do it also being a diabetic because high levels of insulin also activate melanin. This is why with a diabetic, especially in different places in their body, like the fold around their neck, the crease around their neck or underneath their armpit or around their elbows, they have this darkened skin. That's because of insulin. Implamation in general can cause this pigmentation to be greater. Certain drugs can also increase melanin, like certain drugs that help get your heart in rhythm. And even stress can do it as well. I don't know if you've ever seen any of my videos
that when I talked about high levels of cortisol develop a certain body shape. And sometimes I also mention a low level of cortisol where the person is very, very thin and very, very tan, but they have no immune system. So in other words, there's a lot of things in addition to UV light that can create this pigmentation in your skin. But I just want to make clear what melanin really does. It absorbs UV and it neutralizes the damage by dispersing it through the body and turning it into heat actually. Like 99.9% of UV light is filtered out by this melanin. Now let's talk about how to undo this overcompensation of melanin happening in your skin. Now I looked up four different patents related to using natural things to get rid of aging spots or liver spots. One patent had a combination of vitamin C, grape seed extract and zinc. Another one had licorice extract. It had certain berries all
mixed into a cream. And then when you look into the research on some of these natural things, there's a significant effect using zinc and selenium on aging spots. And that's one that I would recommend a little bit more. And I'm going to tell you why right now. First of all, zinc is good for everything related to your skin. It's involved in hundreds of different enzyme reactions, biochemical pathways. And it's really considered a very powerful antioxidant. And it has the ability to naturally lower this excess melanin production. Now if you combine zinc with selenium, I think you have a very powerful one, two punch because selenium is the precursor for glutathione, which is one of the most powerful antioxidants in your cells. And when I say antioxidants, I'm talking about something that gets rid of oxidated damage. The thing that could be actually creating this problem in the first place and also zinc greatly reduces oxidative damage as well. So both of these together can significantly
reduce this overcompensation of melanin as well as get rid of some of the triggers that are creating it. Both of these trace minerals, because you don't only need them in small amounts, also help you protect DNA. So they have a similar purpose to vitamin D, which by the way, vitamin D alone is very, very important as well in this condition. And it's really kind of a Kess 22 because here you are trying to get more vitamin D on the sun, but you're getting more UV as well until the melanin kicks in there and it kind of protects you against the UV. But then now you're not going to get enough vitamin D. So I think a balance of some sun to get your vitamin D, but not too much where you burn is going to be the solution. But on the internal part of your body, your zinc levels, your selenium levels, which by the way, a lot of people are deficient in both of these could be the reason why you're having this overcompensation because the body doesn't have enough antioxidants in the skin to counteract this UV radiation. So it has to over
compensate with melanin, which is acting like an antioxidant. So there's two ways to get more zinc in selenium. One is to find some cream with it. I would recommend taking them as a supplement and taking them in a blend of other trace minerals because that way they go on the inside of the body and they end up in your skin eventually. And like I said before, a lot of people are deficient in zinc in selenium and they're two really important trace minerals for your immune system and also to increase other antioxidants that can help protect you at the skin level and at different levels. Now since I mentioned zinc, if you have not seen this video on zinc, I think it'd be very wise to watch it. Check it out.
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