Ageing well: don’t smoke, use sunscreen, eat nuts to keep wrinkles at bay and your skin looking young

Gravity tugs our skin downward each decade after the age of 35 or so, but there are ways to slow the decline – by not smoking and by using sunscreen

The best way to slow the signs of ageing is from the inside out, by eating whole foods such as almonds that contain protective nutrients

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Eating whole foods, not smoking and applying sunscreen can help you achieve healthier skin and slow the appearance of wrinkles. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 10:15pm, 20 Jul 2020Updated: 4:28am, 21 Jul 2020

I didn’t like being called “freckle face” when I was a kid. So when my mum took me to the paediatrician for a routine check-up, I asked him if he could make my freckles go away.

He kindly told me he could, “but you will never be able to go out in the sun again or your freckles will come back”. So I got used to being “freckle face”.

Freckles may be the least of our skin worries as we grow older. Like it or not, gravity tugs our skin downward each decade after the age of 35 or so. And there is really no such thing as anti-ageing.

The best we can do is to age well, according to dermatologist Dr Raja Sivamani at a recent webinar sponsored by the Almond Board of California (yes, almonds can be good for our skin).

Almonds are a good source of dietary fibre and vitamin E, which helps protect our skin from the effects of the sun. Photo: Shutterstock

I was fascinated with the photos Sivamani showed us that compared the faces of 60-something identical twins. One was a non-smoker. The other a smoker. Can we influence the rate that our skin shows the signs of ageing? Definitely, yes!

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