Ceramides 101: What They Are And What They Do

A youthful appearance is coveted in today’s modern society; but, the concern about our skin looking aged often doesn’t strike us as important until it’s much too late. With so many different anti-aging solutions on the market, it’s sometimes difficult to know what will work. In general, however, natural remedies to an aging complexion render the best results.

Among those natural remedies are ceramides – organic molecules that are automatically manufactured by our bodies to keep our skin healthy and supple. When we are young, our bodies produce more ceramides than when we are old. These molecules are a primary component to the appearance of our skin’s surface, replenishing them can drastically affect how we look.

What Exactly Are Ceramides?

Ceramides are important to the health and beauty of our complexion because they keep the skin firm by directly supporting the dermal matrix. When ceramides are plentiful and functioning properly they protect our skin from losing its moisture, thereby reducing fine lines and wrinkles. When the production of ceramides reduces as we age, the skin can begin to wrinkle and sag. Put simply, ceramides ensure we possess that youthful glow even as we age.

Unfortunately, everyone’s skin ages at a different rate. The aging process can reduce the number of ceramides produced by the skin, resulting in a drastic thinning of the skin’s epidermis. This thinning creates a less effective moisture retention ability, thus fine lines and wrinkles ensue. The obvious solution is to replace those ceramides that your body no longer produces, but how is that possible?

How Are Supplemental Ceramides Produced?

While the body naturally produces ceramides throughout your entire lifetime, aging can drastically decrease the number of ceramides found in your skin. So, scientists have discovered a way to extract ceramides from organic sources for the purposes of replenishing what the body can no longer make.

Until recently, supplemental ceramides were derived from animal sources. However; research, has shown that plant-based ceramides are much healthier and more effective at slowing the skin’s aging processes. These days, grains from rice, corn, and wheat are chiefly utilized. Most commonly, whole grain wheat cells are preferred.

Research has shown that ceramides derived from whole grain wheat can stop the elastase enzymes in the body from destroying the elastin in your skin. Since elastin helps to keep the skin flexible and elastic, whole wheat grain ceramides can decrease wrinkling and other signs of aging. Natural ceramides like this continually maintain the skin’s functionality and moisture, sustaining it and slowing down the process. Supplementing with these types of ceramides can restore your skin’s structure, providing a youthful glow instead of the flaking, itching, and wrinkling that’s often associated with a mature complexion.

How to Use Naturally-Derived Ceramides for Anti-Aging

Studies have shown that the proper use of whole grain wheat-derived ceramides can improve the moisture barrier of your skin, allowing it to stay smooth and supple for longer. When that barrier is functioning adequately, your complexion takes a turn for the better. The importance of such lipids, namely ceramides, is apparent within just a few uses.

To use naturally-derived ceramides correctly, apply it directly to your skin. Although topical treatments are no match for your body’s natural productive capabilities, supplementing your skin’s ceramides in this way can make a big difference. Most often, anti-aging fans can find effective ceramide supplement products online. If those products are made by a reputable company who uses plant-based sources, then the solution should work.

In fact, science has shown that even ingestible ceramides can improve your skin’s appearance. Ingesting ceramides instead of applying them directly to the skin gets them delivered via the bloodstream to the skin’s outer matrix. Because consuming ceramide-rich supplements allows those ceramides to reach the skin’s outer layer in a more natural way, they highly effective at protecting and restoring the moisture barrier that begins to malfunction as we age.

Tips to Find the Best Ceramides

Obviously, using a combination of topical and ingestible ceramides derived from a plant-based source and produced by a reputable company is your best bet. Look for ceramides with the following characteristics:

• Made exclusively with whole grain wheat cells
• Produces with non-genetically modified plant germ
• Contains purified oil sources
• Is made with no gluten or allergens
• Has been tested by a third party
• Has not been tested on animals

Because ceramides have becoming an increasingly popular solution to the aging process, they now come in several different forms. Choosing the best one, or combination thereof, will determine how effective they are on your skin. In general, you will find ceramide supplements in the following forms:

• Topical treatments
• Capsules
• Food-based products
• “Beauty drinks” (made popular by Japanese laboratories)
• Powder

While human clinical trials using the wheat-derived ceramide extract began more than a decade ago, more discoveries are being made every day. It turns out that ceramide supplementation is favorable for people who aren’t even suffering from a sagging or wrinkling complexion. Because ceramides can reduce the number of free radicals in the skin, supplements containing plant-derived ceramides are now a popular product for people of all ages.

Final Tips

To get the most out of your ceramide supplement routine, remember these 10 important facts:

1. Aging causes the skin to lose some of its youthful moisture, smoothness, and elasticity due to the reduction in the body’s natural production of ceramide molecules.
2. High-quality ceramides enhance the complexion by contributing to the skin’s moisture barrier.
3. Ceramides, either natural or plant-derived, account for about 40% of your skin’s extracellular matrix.
4. The skin’s outer matrix binds the cells of your complexion to create a protective barrier which retains the moisture than keeps it looking young.
5. Itchy, rough, dry, and wrinkled skin are the first signs of ceramide depletion.
6. Ceramide supplementation can be achieved in several ways, including via topic treatments, food-based products, capsules, drinks, and delicate powders.
7. The best ceramide supplements use whole grain wheat instead of animal-based products.
8. Consumable wheat-based ceramides can improve your complexion from the inside out.
9. Ceramide supplementation is important at any age.
10. Early treatment can decrease the skin’s signs of aging significantly.