The old adage you are what you eat – or in this case, what you drink – is currently being tested by university students to see if drinking a specific fruit smoothie each day can make them feel healthier and improve their appearance.
For 6 weeks, 80 volunteers are drinking these special smoothies to see how appearance and health are affected.
They’re testing what the affect of a carotenoid rich fresh drink could have on their skin and perceived attractiveness. One group is drinking a smoothie made from carrots and fruits, while the control group is only drinking mineral water.
Carotenoids are organic pigments and powerful antioxidants that the body can turn into Vitamin A. They are known to prevent disease and enhance the body’s immune system. Generally, carotenoids are found in orange and yellow fruits and vegetables.
Dr. Ian Stephen of The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus is the one conducting the research to see if drinking the smoothies can help make the students look healthier and more attractive.
Originally 30 recipes were created, then only 7 were chosen for the study. Dr. Brigitte Graf, a nutrition scientist and expert in foods, helped design the smoothies to ensure the carotenoids are being absorbed into the skin.
Dr. Stephen already has successfully conducted similar research with other groups where he found that people who ate more fruit and vegetables each day had a more golden color to their skin. In follow up perceptual studies, this made them look healthier and more attractive to other people.
Besides consuming fruits and vegetables to test how healthy and attractive someone is, Dr. Stephen previously conducted research that demonstrated people with slightly redder faces were considered healthier-looking and more attractive. Since skin pigment is based on the red pigment in blood, he concluded that blood that was more oxygenated – making it brighter red and meaning the person is actually healthier – is reflected in skin tone, which others perceive as more attractive.
Dr. Stephen’s studies demonstrating how skin tone makes people appear more attractive were inspired by Charles Darwin, who published The Descendant of Man in Relation to Sex in 1871.
Darwin proposed that people with more attractive skin mated more and passed on their genes, causing more of the population to have attractive skin. Since reading about Darwin’s theories, Dr. Stephen has been interested in testing how the enhancement of skin color affects attractiveness and other perceptions of humans.
In this current study, Dr. Stephen plans to prove that people who drink carotenoid rich smoothies look healthier and are actually healthier. He’s hoping to measure and demonstrate that the appearance of skin is enhanced by nutrition, which in turn, would encourage people to eat and drink more healthily. We’ll soon see what he discovers about fruit smoothie benefits.
Sources:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/carotenoids/
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20140107/Fruit-smoothies-visibly-improve-skins-appearance.aspx
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