The U.S. Diet Often Misses Vitamins C & E + How To Get More*

Both vitamins C and E are essential for skin health. First, a little refresher on C, shall we? The beloved antioxidant is an essential nutrient your body needs to make collagen, as it’s actually able to promote fibroblast production, tend to damaged collagen DNA, and regulate collagen synthesis, or the pathway in which collagen is made.* 

But that’s not all: Vitamin C stabilizes the collagen you already have, thanks to its antioxidant properties that can help neutralize free radicals. In other words, a thoughtfully made collagen supplement should contain vitamin C as well.*

Vitamin E is also essential for maintaining skin health, considering it’s the most prevalent fat-soluble vitamin in the skin. It works to retain moisture and strengthen the skin barrier, which is perhaps why “vitamin E [insufficiency] has been associated with skin dryness,” board-certified dermatologist Cynthia Bailey, M.D., previously tells mbg. Vitamin E intake also protects against collagen cross-linking (aka, when collagen becomes hard and stiff), a process that plays a role in skin aging.*

Alas, vitamin C and E have a common caveat: Your body cannot make the two nutrients on its own. Therefore, they must be ingested daily—and this is where many people fall short.* While true deficiency is quite rare (as you can get vitamins C and E from a bunch of foods, including almonds, spinach, broccoli, kiwi, and citrus), many people still don’t get the recommended amount for optimal skin health. Ferira puts it this way: “The reality is that we have a nation walking around with widespread nutrient inadequacies. This is a fact rooted in data, and meanwhile, there’s a simple solution.”* 

“It turns out, 35% of U.S. adults are not eating the recommended amount of vitamin C,” says Ferira. “That’s over a hundred million Americans.” Estimates of the national vitamin E gap reveal an even more dire situation: 80% of U.S. adults aren’t meeting vitamin E needs from food alone. That many be a conservative estimate, as another study shows up to 90% of Americans do not consume sufficient dietary vitamin E. In other words: To optimize the skin benefits of these two vitamins, you may need to up your intake.*