I want to talk to you about an inexpensive way to get some polyphenols on your skin.
Let’s start with some definitions. Polyphenols are plant-derived compounds that act as antioxidants and have anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic, antiproliferative, and anti carcinogenic benefits. In other words, they work miracles in your body when consumed, and when applied to your skin, they also work to fight against the harmful effects of toxins and ultraviolet light that your skin gets exposed to. They’re called polyphenols because, chemically speaking, they’re based on a phenol ring, which is a 6 carbon ring with an attached alcohol group.
There are different types of polyphenols and this list includes flavonoids (like catechin and quercetin, found in green tea and apples), phenolic acids like caffeic acid, and lignins. Each has a different effect on your body when consumed.
The richest sources of dietary polyphenols include fruits, wine, chocolate, legumes like beans, tea, coffee, and dietary oils like olive oil and coconut oil.
Polyphenols have a lot of health promoting benefits. When consumed, polyphenols can reduce blood pressure and risk of heart disease, reduce risk of cancer (particularly soy-derived isoflavones—which are a type of flavanoids), may improve cognitive function and reduce the risk of dementia, and appear to improve your gut health by promoting growth of health-promoting bacteria in your GI tract.
So, clearly, there are a lot of benefits to consuming polyphenols.
Now, let’s take it a step further and talk about polyphenols and your skin. Polyphenols also promote skin health. Specifically, polyphenols like ferulic acid, mangiferin, verbascoside, oleuropein, quercetin, resveratrol, and caffeic acid. These polyphenols have been shown to actually prevent and even reverse skin aging in cell culture and animal model studies. There are also some human studies that show the same. We’re still in the early phases of understanding how these molecules work and interact with the skin, but the data is very promising.
One way to get some of these polyphenols onto your skin is to consume foods that are high in these substances. It’s why you always hear me preaching about eating a healthy diet.
The other way is to directly apply skin care products that contain these polyphenols. One example is CE Ferulic, made by skinceuticals. This topical skin serum has 0.5% ferulic acid, which is one of the important polyphenols that we’ve discussed.
I personally don’t use that product, because it’s dang expensive. It’s $200 for one ounce. Now, if I really wanted to use it, I would buy it, but I don’t really want to support that company.
So, I’m going to share with you an inexpensive way to get some of these polyphenols onto your skin. And, that brings us to the meat of this podcast episode. The information that I’m going to share with you is from a paper published in 2009. I’m linking it in the show notes for you. This study looked at coconut oil, including virgin extracted coconut oil, and measured its levels of polyphenols. Specifically, the scientists who did the study looked at the polyphenols ferulic acid (again found in the expensive CE Ferulic product) and p-coumaric acid—these were specifically measured because they are known to be health promoting (ferulic acid has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and is chemo preventive for cancers; p-coumaric acid is also known for its chemo preventive and antioixdant properties) and have been previously reported to be found in coconut oil.
Okay, so they not only tested levels of these polyphenols, but they also tested their ability to quench reactive oxygen species. This is called an anti-oxidation assay and using an industry standard radical-scavenging pathway.
Here are the results. The total polyphenol content in coconut oil differed depending on how the coconut oil was processed. Refined, bleached, and deodorized coconut oil had the lowest levels of polyphenols. BUT, polyphenols were still present at detectable levels. Fermentation processed virgin coconut oil had the highest polyphenol levels, while cold processed virgin coconut oil had the second highest levels. So, the method of coconut oil extraction clearly matters when it comes to preserving these beneficial compounds.
All coconut oil tested, including the refined, bleached and deodorized coconut oil had detectable ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid. The refined coconut oil had the lowest levels of ferulic acid, but curiously the highest levels of p-coumaric acid. Fermentation processed virgin coconut oil had the highest levels of ferulic acid, followed by cold processed virgin coconut oil. Interestingly, three other polyphenols were found in the fermentation processed virgin coconut oil—vanillic acid, caffeic acid, and syringic acid. These three polyphenols were not detected in the other two coconut oil samples.
Fermentation extracted virgin coconut oil had the highest free radical scavenging activity—in other words, the greatest antioxidant capacity—followed by cold processed, and lastly the refined, bleached and deodorized coconut oil.
Now, here’s what’s interesting, vitamin E, also known as tocopherol, is also used as an antioxidant in a lot of skin care products, and was found to be more effective as a radical scavenging molecule compared to all types of coconut oil. That said, there is no detectable polyphenols directly found in pure vitamin E.
So, in conclusion, this study showed that coconut oil has detectable levels of important and skin health promoting polyphenols, and the method of extraction matters. The scientists also concluded that these polyphenols likely contribute to the anti-inflammatory properties seen when using coconut oil, whether ingested or topically applied to your skin.
So, here’s the actionable step for you. If you want to get ferulic acid onto your skin on the cheap, use either cold pressed or fermentation processed virgin coconut oil. You don’t have to buy CE Ferulic — you can use straight up virgin coconut oil. I would not buy the refined coconut oil given this study’s findings, because clearly coconut oil extraction methods affect antioxidant and polyphenol quantities.
References:
Int J Mol Sci 2021 22:12641. & Int J Food Sci Nutr 2009; 60 Suppl 2:114-23.