Does drinking lots of water help if you have dry skin?

by time news

Imagine your skin as a perfectly fitting suit. If you could pull that out and spread it out on the floor, it would take up an area of ​​about 1.5 to 2 meters. And if you then dragged the suit with you in a suitcase on the way to vacation, you would immediately tap the maximum weight for hand luggage: it weighs (including subcutaneous connective tissue) fifteen to twenty kilos. It is clear that the skin is our largest organ. You want to take care of that. How do you do that if you suffer from dry skin?

Dry skin loses too much moisture

With dry skin, or in medical terms, transepidermal water loss, the skin loses too much moisture. It is not about sweat, which comes from the sweat glands, but about moisture that evaporates between your skin cells. With dry skin, there is more space between the skin cells, which makes it easier for moisture to escape. ‘Compare it with a brick wall that has too little grout’, says Göran van Rooijen, dermatologist at the Spaarne Gasthuis in Haarlem.

Dry skin is partly genetically determined

If you suffer from dry skin, it can have many causes. In part it is genetically determined. But conditions, medicines, age or your environment can also play a role. ‘People with a family history of eczema, asthma or hay fever are more likely to suffer from dry skin. In the elderly, the elasticity of the skin decreases, creating more space between the skin cells. That is why they more often have dry skin’, says Van Rooijen.

In winter you often suffer from dry skin

In the winter period, more people suffer from dry skin. The culprit is the radiator. A heater that is on makes the air drier. The difference between the amount of moisture in your skin and the amount of moisture in the room increases, causing the skin to evaporate more moisture than normal. Van Rooijen recommends wearing a sweater, which can protect the skin from contact with the dry air.

Drinking more water sometimes helps (a little bit)

Well, so it is with dry skin. But how do you get rid of it? That turns out not to be so easy. Drinking a few extra glasses of water every day to replenish the moisture seems like a nice solution, but it doesn’t work that way. The moment you drink a glass of water, that water is absorbed into your bloodstream through your intestines. The water then spreads all over your body.

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So there is no guarantee that the extra water will actually reach your skin. In addition, your body determines, dry skin or not, when it finds that you have absorbed enough moisture. The rest you exhale or disappear as stool, urine or sweat. Those extra glasses of water could therefore only lead to more toilet visits.

Do you always drink too little? Then extra drinking can help a little. Not only your skin, but all tissues in your body need sufficient moisture. And for that you need to get enough fluids.

Most body lotions don’t work

Drinking more water (usually) does not help. Then what? The internet is bursting with tips against dry skin. They often recommend expensive creams or treatments. But also an expensive body lotion will, in most cases, not work miracles. On the contrary.

‘Most body lotions are water-based. When applied, such a body lotion heats up and evaporates on the skin. This not only ensures that the body lotion cannot absorb properly. That evaporation has a suction effect on the moisture in your skin and thus actually removes more moisture from it,’ explains Van Rooijen.

Oily ointment = a good idea

So what can you try for dry skin? ‘We recommend people with dry skin to apply a greasy ointment that is not water-based. It depends on your skin type how greasy the ointment should be,’ says Van Rooijen. Oily ointments create a kind of protective layer that prevents too much moisture from escaping the skin.

‘But too fat is also not good, then you close the skin completely and you start sweating. And that actually removes moisture. A fatty ointment is therefore better than, for example, Vaseline or (natural) oils.’

Protect the natural fat layer on your skin

Finally, the natural layer of fat that is already on your skin: sebum. Made in your sebaceous glands, it protects your skin from drying out and helps keep bacteria and fungi out. If you produce less sebum or if there is less sebum on the skin, it dries out sooner.

‘We see, for example, that if we use medication to inhibit the sebaceous gland, for example in the case of acne, this can lead to dryness of the skin and sometimes even eczema,’ says Van Rooijen. If you often take a bath or take a hot shower, and also use soap or shower gel, you always wash that protective layer off your skin. Your skin will dry out sooner. This also happens if you wash your hands a lot.

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