Your skin is the largest organ on your body. So it’s no surprise that what shows up on it could be indicative of something deeper — or vice versa.
If you’ve noticed something’s ‘off’ with your skin, or you’ve been struggling with long-term skin issues that nothing seems to touch, there’s a chance you need to look more closely at your heart health.
And in this article, I’m going to explain why.
Here’s a quick breakdown of everything we’re going to cover:
Article overview
- Poor circulation, chronic inflammation, and conditions like psoriasis or rosacea can be early warning signs of cardiovascular dysfunction.
- What you put on your skin matters as much as what you eat, as some products have links to hypertension, atherosclerosis, and systemic inflammation.
- Protecting both skin and heart starts by switching to clean, natural skincare products, eating whole, real foods, and getting more sunlight while eating fewer seed oils.
The connection between your skin and heart
You already know that your heart is responsible for pushing blood (i.e., oxygen and nutrients) to every corner of your body. This is vitally important for your skin, which requires good circulation to stay healthy and support efficient wound healing.
So when your circulation is sluggish, or worse, potentially impaired by heart disease, you may notice its effects even before you see anything amiss in your biomarkers. Some of the most common signs of a heart or circulatory problem will show up on your skin as:
- Persistent redness or discoloration, up to and including inflammatory disorders like rosacea
- Cold, white, or blue/purple extremities, but especially fingers and toes
- Cuts, scrapes, and bruises that take much longer to heal than normal (for context, most minor bruises heal in two weeks or less)
- Fragile skin that breaks or tears easily
You should also know there’s a litany of skin diseases that are directly tied to metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular risk. If you have a history of hidradenitis suppurativa, atopic dermatitis, or psoriasis, you’re at a much greater risk of suffering from a cardiac event.
This is a bit of a chicken-or-an-egg scenario: these skin conditions may stem from a developing heart condition, or they may put you at a greater risk by proxy. Either way, we know they share a common developmental factor: chronic inflammation.
Chronic swelling in the body will result in skin issues, heart problems, and other metabolic dysfunctions.
And the sooner you learn how to avoid this, the faster you can protect or potentially heal the heart.
That’s why you need to know…
What you put on your skin can affect your heart
This matters whether you’re 29 years old or 92. And if you already have a pre-existing heart condition, it likely matters a great deal more.
If you already have a heart condition:
- Skincare devices like depuffing wands and Therabodies can interfere with heart implants like pacemakers and defibrillators.
- Urea in body moisturizers can release formaldehyde into the bloodstream, which can lead to heart palpitations.
- Vitamin K could reduce the effectiveness of some heart disease medications, especially blood thinners.
And the list goes on.
Remember: your skin is a large organ, and whatever you put on it can be absorbed into the body.
This applies even to ‘heart-healthy’ items, particularly with products like:
- Phthalates: Synthetic fragrances that disrupt the endocrine system and are directly tied to hypertension and atherosclerosis
- Parabens: Studies show they may contain estrogenic activity, which can contribute to cardiovascular disease
- Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS): Connected to skin irritation and systemic inflammation by releasing pro-inflammatory mediators
- Propylene Glycol: Helps other chemicals penetrate into the skin, which makes it easier for harmful substances to enter the body (including phthalates and parabens). Interestingly, intravenous injection of PG is known to drop blood pressure and affect heart rhythms.
How to protect your heart by protecting your skin
One of the biggest ways to defend your metabolic health is to care for your skin (and vice versa).
I’d recommend that you:
Be extremely picky about what you put on your skin
Start reading the labels on your skincare products. If your existing routine has phthalates or parabens, you may want to switch to different brands or products.
You may want to consider incorporating more natural skincare routines, including tallow or lard-based products or sunscreens without endocrine disruptors. Or, if you like DIY, consider making some of your own.
You can learn more about the specifics of this in my interview with Charles Mayfield.
Eat for both skin and heart health
The easiest way to do this is to eat whole, real foods. This means buying single-ingredient foods like red meat, eggs, and milk. On one hand, you expose yourself to less processed food, which is inversely related to both heart and skin-related issues. You also limit your exposure to seed oils and added sugar, both of which can have negative impacts on your skin.
If you’ve mostly followed a Standard American Diet (SAD) up to now, I would highly recommend beginning with an elimination diet. This will give your body a chance to heal, as well as act as a tool to identify any food sensitivities that could be making certain conditions worse (i.e., gluten, which I would recommend cutting from your diet anyway).
You can learn more about the specific protocol in my upcoming book: Stay Off My Kitchen Table.
Get more sunlight
Contrary to what some would have you believe, avoiding sunlight may actually hurt your metabolic health. Research has found that risks of skin cancer actually decrease with more sun exposure. Plus, a 20-year Swedish study found that non-smokers who avoided sun exposure had a similar life expectancy to smokers, as well as a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
This is likely due to the overwhelming presence of seed oils in our diet. UV rays can initiate lipid peroxidation that damages skin and DNA with the presence of polyunsaturated fat. So if you eliminate seed oils, you remove the ‘gasoline’ that makes sunlight dangerous in the first place.
You can learn more about seed oil, sunscreen, and sunlight here.
Protecting your health for the long haul
Now more than ever, you need to love the skin you’re in. And in the context of metabolic health, that means doing your utmost to protect your skin, and by proxy, protect your heart.
This is just the tip of the metabolic iceberg. There are many, many more things to consider about the interplay between skin and heart health.
So I highly recommend doing some research of your own. Here are some resources to help get you started:
The earliest signs of autoimmune disease