Young adults who ate baby carrots three times a week significantly increased skin carotenoids, an immune-boosting and anti-inflammatory plant nutrient, according to findings presented at NUTRITION 2024, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition held June 29–July 2 in Chicago. Levels of carotenoids increased even more when people took a supplement containing beta carotene, also a carotenoid, in addition to eating carrots.
About 9 out of 10 Americans don’t get the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, according to the study authors.
“Our findings show that in young adults, a small and manageable change to their diet could increase skin carotenoid accumulation,” says Suresh Mathews, PhD, a professor and the chair of nutrition and dietetics at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Carotenoids are responsible for the bright red, orange, and yellow colors of many fruits and vegetables. They can be measured in the skin to gauge fruit and vegetable consumption, because diet is the only source of these pigments.
“They have two important roles in health,” says Dave Bridges, PhD, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the study.
“One is that they provide us with the thing that can become vitamin A, and the other is that they work as antioxidants,” he says.
Vitamin A is important for normal vision, immune function, reproduction, and growth and development.[3]
Antioxidants help protect human cells from damage caused by free radicals — unstable molecules produced naturally by the body as a result of metabolism. Left unchecked, free radicals can cause a condition called oxidative stress, which can lead to numerous illnesses and diseases, including cancer and heart disease.[2]
Higher levels of skin carotenoids are associated with improved immune function and better skin health, including lower incidence of non-melanoma skin cancer, says Dr. Mathews.
For this study, investigators aimed to find out if eating baby carrots just three times a week had measurable benefits in carotenoid levels and how that might compare with the effect of beta-carotene supplements, which are also designed to raise levels of the antioxidants.
Researchers randomly assigned 60 young adults to groups that received four weeks of either 100 grams (g) (about half a cup) of baby carrots; a multivitamin supplement containing beta-carotene; a combination of baby carrots and the supplement; or 100 g of Granny Smith apple slices (the control group).
Before and after the diet intervention, scientists measured participants’ carotenoid levels using an instrument called a VeggieMeter, a validated tool that uses light waves to measure carotenoids in a person’s skin.
Compared with pre-intervention levels, skin carotenoid scores significantly increased, by 10.8 percent in the group who received the baby carrots alone and by 21.6 percent in the group receiving the carrots and the supplement. Skin carotenoid levels did not change in the control group or in those who received only the supplement.
Source: everydayhealth
