It's a toss up which does more to help you retain the appear­ance of youth—a head of thick, lustrous hair or a smooth skin, glowing with health. Being a man, and realizing how con­scious my sex is of their hairline, my vote goes to hair as second only to the eyes in maintaining youthful good looks. The ladies, however, will no doubt protest that dry, crepy skin is the more aging. And I shall readily agree that both thin, dull, graying hair and a dry, wrinkled, blotched skin are certain to defeat your efforts to look young. So why invite either one?

Let's first diagnose what's wrong when your hair begins to "show its age."

The absence from your diet of no one single nutrient is wholly responsible when your hair becomes dry, discolored, lusterless, and begins to grow thinner, coming out "by the handfuls." Nutritional science has proved that this unhealthy state happens whenever several different food elements are lacking in your diet.

The mineral chlorine, for instance, when only partially lacking from the diet of laboratory animals, will cause their hair to fall out. This also happens if the trace mineral zinc is not amply supplied to these experimental animals: their hair does not develop normally, and is quickly lost. The same is true of silicon. Another mineral involved in keeping your hair healthy and "in your scalp" is iodine. As I explained in Chapter 8, when not enough iodine is provided the thyroid gland to produce its hormone, one of the unpleasant symp­toms is brittle, lifeless hair that falls out too readily and is not amply replaced, resulting in a progressive tendency toward a bare scalp.

In other words, the minerals chlorine, zinc, silicon and iodine, when not adequately supplied in the diet, are one of the deficiencies that lead to baldness.

Because each single hair is made of protein, your hair needs the sulphur-supplying amino acids found in egg yolk. (This also holds good for healthy fingernails.) When you don't eat enough of these particular amino acids, your hair becomes lusterless and lacks sheen. It's a well-known trick among horse fanciers to feed a show horse on eggs so his coat will acquire that beautiful sheen so greatly admired in a prize animal. And egg shampoos have long been a popular beauty treat­ment for human hair. The only fault I can find with this beauty treatment is that the egg is wasted on the outside—eat your eggs for beautiful hair with a sheen!

This brings protein into our growing list of nutrients that feed your hair. But what about vitamins?

Science has discovered that there is a mysterious pact be­tween these three—proteins, minerals and vitamins. A sort of "closed shop" agreement whereby neither of the group will perform to its greatest or most efficient capacity unless the other two are there in full force. From this, we know there must also be vitamins involved in this business of keeping your hair young and healthy.

The first vitamin in this "hair pact" is vitamin A—the same fellow that feeds your eyes and helps keep them in good seeing order (the same vitamin A, too, that keeps your skin from becoming dry and supersensitive to scratchy garments such as wool). If your diet is not providing enough vitamin A, then you may expect dry, dead-looking hair, with a scalp well powdered with dandruff. And if you permit this vitamin deficiency to become more severe, your hair will grow coarse and ugly, then begin falling out.

Next are these B-vitamins—pantothenic acid, para-amino-benzoic acid and inositol.

Pantothenic acid became known several years ago as "the gray hair vitamin." A fad of taking this isolated vitamin in concentrated doses swept over the country. Beauty parlors became dispensaries of pantothenic acid capsules, while bar­bers began urging their male customers to buy them. As a result, hundreds of persons began religiously taking their "gray hair vitamin." Some noticed what they reported as a slight improvement in the coloration of their hair, but the great majority were frank to admit that it "didn't do much good." Why? Because experience has now taught us that no single food element can work its nutritional wonders toward keeping us healthy and young-looking when isolated from its cohorts. That is, when separated from the other members of its own family, as well as from certain other vital food elements. In the case of the "gray hair vitamin" fad, pantothenic acid was sent out to do its job without para-aminobenzoic and inositol, all three of them being members of the same B-complex family where nature placed them, each to complement and round out the work of the others. That is why pure pantothenic acid capsules failed in a great majority of cases to restore color to gray hair—because one vitamin was expected to handle the task normally performed by three B-vitamins, aided by protein and certain minerals, all working as a team.

I've saved until last the story of inositol and baldness as a sort of encouragement "dividend" for you men.

Dr. Wooley of Rockefeller Institute has tied lack of inositol directly to baldness. In an extensive experiment he fed laboratory animals a diet that was adequate in every respect, except it didn't contain any inositol whatsoever. Be­fore long, the hair on these animals began falling out until large patches on their bodies became completely bald. But when he started feeding them either concentrated inositol or the natural vitamin as found in foods rich in the B-vitamins, the bald patches were covered with a complete new growth of hair in only eighteen days.

Now, I'm not promising that you'll grow a new thatch in eighteen days if you add inositol to your diet. Throughout this book, as in all my books, I try to avoid the extravagant claims that characterize too many books on nutrition. But I can tell you that many persons who have taken the precaution to add to their planned diets generous amounts of the deli­cious foods rich in all the B-vitamins have been delighted to notice a distinct growth of new hair.

The question is often asked why men become bald more readily than women.

A variety of stock phrases is always on hand to answer this perfectly logical question—hereditary tendencies, tight hats, too frequent shampooing, greater sexual activity and so forth. Yet seldom does anyone give the one provable answer: Men need even greater quantities of the important B-vitamins than do women, hence their more serious lack of these food elements reacts on their scalps.

In our enlightened era of milling the youth-preserving B-vitamins out of our grains and our sugar cane, it is the men who suffer the more acute deficiencies of inositol. So why don't you men concentrate on keeping your hair through feeding it, rather than dousing it with costly, worthless, sweet-smelling hair tonics?

Here's a quick resume of the food elements you should think of as nourishing your hair: high-grade protein; vitamin A; the B-vitamins—pantothenic acid3 para-aminobenzoic acid and inositol; and the minerals iodine, chlorine, silicon and zinc.

Your skin, the same as your hair, is made of protein. In fact, it's possible to produce ulcers of the skin merely by keeping the diet extremely low in protein. Yet these skin ulcers can be healed quickly enough when abundant quan­tities of high-protein foods are restored to the meals. We know that human skin is made of a body protein composed of all 10 of the essential amino acids described in Chapter 5.

Similarly, a reducing diet (or any other diet, for that matter) which excludes fats is bound to result in a dry, wrinkled skin. Olive, peanut, sunflower seed, corn and cod-liver oils contain certain fatty acids which are essential to the health of the skin. A dry, scaly condition of the skin is likely to develop when an insufficient amount of these fatty acids are eaten. Although found in cream and butter to some extent, these skin-conditioning fatty acids are more generously available in the oils mentioned. Or, if you prefer obtaining your daily supply of these fatty acids by eating the hulled sunflower seeds, that is equally effective. These seeds will also supply two other skin foods—vitamin A and calcium.

Anyone who has ever traveled in Mediterranean countries where olive oil "flows like water" has noticed the beautiful smooth skin so prevalent among the women of those countries. This was also my outstanding impression of the women, both young and old, whom I saw in the South American countries where the Latin use of cooking oils (mainly sunflower seed and olive in those lands) is widespread.

I might mention here that olive oil makes a wonderful skin softener when used instead of the costly, highly perfumed face creams and lotions whose alcoholic content (in the per­fumes) tends to dry your skin that much more. The histori­cally famous women of the ancient Mediterranean world learned many centuries ago that olive oil—used internally, as well as externally—was their best skin beautifier. Try keep­ing a small, wide-mouthed jar of pure olive oil in the bath­room cabinet, and lubricate your skin lightly with this natural softener at least once a day. You'll be amazed to notice how the oil soaks into the skin so thoroughly there's no need to wipe off the surplus with a cleansing tissue, thus leaving a fresh dewy softness like that of a truly youthful complexion.

While on the subject of external skin beautifiers for the ladies, here is an excellent cosmetic treatment that was standard among the lovely ladies of the ancient world. Mix about two tablespoons of millet meal with a like amount of honey, add about two teaspoons o£ olive oil and combine into a smooth paste. About a tablespoon o£ almond meal may be added, if available. After tying the hair well in a cloth or soft towel, apply this paste liberally over the face and neck, keeping well away from the eyes to avoid smarting (not that the mixture is in any way harmful to the eyes). Allow to re­main on for at least half an hour, longer if possible. Then wipe off and dash cold water over the skin.

But please don't concentrate on this external aid, and neglect feeding your skin from the inside. This excellent beauty mask is nothing more than an adjunct to your beauty diet, to counteract the effects of harsh cosmetics, too much sun, smoky atmospheres, dusty climates, or drying soaps and hard waters. (Remember, also, that a little honey and olive oil, to which a few drops of rose water are added, can be a wonderful treatment for the roughened skin on your hands, arms and elbows.)

And now to get back to the effects of diet on your skin. Did you know that too many high-starch foods can cause a disorder known as skin diabetes"? When this occurs, the skin erupts with eczema, or other unsightly skin blemishes. Dr. Erich Urbach of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School reported that skin diabetes may occur when the skin contains too much sugar, introduced into the body through the diet, even though the actual diabetes tests may show no evidence of this disease. The blotchy, itching blemishes clear up only through strict observance of a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet.

Of course, not all skin blemishes are caused by skin diabetes. But I know of no quicker way to bring on skin disfigure­ments of various kinds and seriousness than by loading up the diet with a lot of artificial, high-starch foods, and neglecting the proteins, fresh vegetables and fruits.

If your body, as a whole, is not properly nourished, the skin is usually one of the first organs to show signs of a nutritional deficiency.

When the diet does not contain enough vitamin A, one o£ the early symptoms is a pimply eruption on the arms and thighs, soon spreading to the abdomen, legs, back and neck. This eruption resembles acne, although the pimples are not pus-containing, and milder forms have the rough, un­sightly appearance of "goose flesh."

Pellagra, the deficiency disease caused by a serious lack of the B-vitamins, niacin in particular, is characterized by severe skin troubles that begin on the hands and feet and resemble a bad sunburn, with blisters and cracked skin.

Biotin, one of the B-vitamins, when seriously lacking in the diet, results in a dry, peeling skin, also causing it to take on a grayish pallor. A word of caution is needed here. Even though you may think your diet contains ample B-complex, if you eat raw egg white in meringues, eggnogs, or in other ways, the avidin in the uncooked egg white will combine with biotin and prevent this B-vitamin from reaching your bloodstream. Therefore, a biotin deficiency may occur, despite an abundance of B-complex in the diet, if uncooked egg white is also included.

When the minerals iodine and iron are not regularly and adequately supplied to your body, the skin suffers. Too little iodine, of course, slows down production of the thyroid hormone, and one result of this hormone deficiency is an ugly, dry, rough skin. Iron, the mineral so urgently needed by the blood to prevent anemia, gives the skin a smooth, healthy glow which is a reflection of the rich blood flowing through it.

No doubt you're waiting for me to tell you that such-and-such foods will "erase" the wrinkles from your face. That I cannot do and still tell the truth. But I can tell you that a skin which is not allowed to become dry and roughened, either because of external abuse or internal starvation, is far less likely to develop and retain deep wrinkles than a poorly nourished skin.

And I can assure you that wrinkles, in themselves, are not always disfiguring. I'm thinking o£ those merry laugh and smile wrinkles which give character to a face. Did anyone ever see human warmth or merriment in the wax-smooth, wrinkle-free, expressionless face of a doll? Wrinkles are not seriously detrimental in a face and body that are kept youth­ful through planned diet. Far more aging than wrinkles are dull eyes, sallow and jaundiced skin, a weary stoop and creak­ing gait. And wrinkles in the disposition are more telltale o£ age than wrinkles in the face. So if you'll concentrate on re­storing smoothness and a healthy color to your skin in the ways I've recommended above, I can assure you that there will be nothing withered about either your skin or your spirit.

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