EPISODE 102: Secrets to Radiant Skin

Episode 102: Mark Tager, MD

Well, if you ask healthcare synergist, Dr. Mark Tager, he’d answer: It depends.

He’s right. Basically due to the fact that no two people on this planet have the exact same skin. And so, not everyone needs the exact same things.

So thanks to this same exploding information from the development of the science of nutrigenomics, information on gut and skin microbiome, and food sensitivities, it’s now possible to take a more personalized approach to your skin health.

In this most recent episode of the Thrive State Podcast, we are compounding this loads of information on skin health–and the gut-brain-skin connections–and unpacking the secrets to a radiant skin with Dr. Mark Tager.

Dr. Tager is my mentor, an early pioneer in integrative medicine who founded the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Portland, Oregon in 1976. He has authored eleven books, mostly advocating an integrative approach to medicine, including his most recent Feed Your Skin Right.

Skin health is such a great entryway to talk about general wellness! So let’s start the conversation there with Dr. Tager.

Get to know more about Dr. Tager’s work and his book, Feed Your Skin Right, at drtager.com and @drmtager.

Show notes

Principle of Nutrigenomics in Simple Terms

• You cannot out-supplement a crappy diet.
• 60% of determinants of health are about diet. 20% is intelligent supplementation. 20% are topicals applied from the outside, to biostimulate the skin.
• Sugar attaching to collagen in your skin causes fine lines and wrinkles.

Do’s and Don’ts for the Skin

• The closest the food looks to its natural state, the better it is for you.
• The sad diet is devoid of nutrients, highly processed, and high in sugar and unhealthy oils.
• Sugar, fats, and dairy (for some people) mostly affect the skin.
• Essential fatty acids must be balanced. Too much omega 6, and too low omega 3 pushes you to inflammatory pathways.
• Many people are mineral and vitamin deficient, especially vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc.

The Gut-Brain-Skin Axis

• There’s chemical information shared in these three all the time.
• Fiber helps with dysbiosis. Fiber is the preferred food of good bacteria in the gut. Butyrate heals the gut, propionate affects the liver, and acetate goes out to the skin.
• If you want good skin, start with fiber.

Spore-based probiotics (Bacillus) and diet

• The microbiome creates vitamin K, hormones, and other neurotransmitters that are essential for well-being. Gut-produced neurotransmitters don’t cross the blood-brain barrier, but it wakes up afferent fibers of the vagus nerve going to the brain which sends information back down to the gut and spleen that regulates inflammation.
• Most of the probiotics that we take are going to get destroyed in the stomach so they don’t really do that much. You need above 2 billion CFU to have much effect.

When do you need deeper testing?

• It depends on what your objectives are.
• 70-80% of our patients will need treatments following the same principle: healing the gut, cutting down things that cause inflammation, and boosting the immune system. But to some people, these things wouldn’t be enough, thus, the need for deeper testing.
• Some useful tests: whole genome sequencing vs 16S, GI tests, organic acids, and other metabolite tests, food sensitivity testing

Sleep, Stress and Skin

• You absolutely need at least 7 hours of sleep. During this critical time, your body can do its “housekeeping.”
• Breathing is the first aid for stress

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