By now most of us are familiar with antioxidants for skin care.  They are touted for their anti-aging properties, and we hear how they are in red wine, important for heart health, and so on.

For a time, the marketing folks on Madison Avenue seized on the theme, and we saw antioxidants appearing in every cream and face wash on the market.  But did these products live up to the hype?  And is there a particular antioxidant that really can reverse the signs of aging?

The little known antioxidant that can dramatically improve skin quality

The answer to the second question, at least, is yes.  While many cosmetic lines did fail to live up to their billing, there is a little known antioxidant that can reduce the appearance of wrinkles, freckles, age spots, and so on.

But before we get to this powerhouse nutrient, it's worth a quick sidebar into how to get the most out of your antioxidants.

For starters, many of the cosmetics were good, but they took a long time to work, so people wound up switching brands, or mixing lines, minimizing the impact of the antioxidants.

They also would eat foods that were known to have antioxidants, but the foods had so little that you would have had to eat many pounds of salmon to get an effective dose.

And that brings us to the mystery nutrient…

What pink flamingos have to tell us about skin care

Flamingos are in fact born white.  The pink plumage is a result of their diet.  The nutrient that adds this color is a carotenoid, and they acquire it from eating shrimp and blue-green.  Similarly, salmon have this same carotenoid, again from their diet, resulting in their pink flesh.  The more colorful, the more carotenoid.

So what's it called?  Astaxanthin.  And here's what it can do for your skin…

• Put the brakes on, and possibly reverse, wrinkling
• Help regulate moisture in your skin, especially helpful for dry skin
• Hold off aging… we all age, but astaxanthin can help minimize its affects
• Keep freckles from spreading… and minimize their appearance
• Even help fade age spots

Astaxanthin may be most potent antioxidant for skin care…

…but where can we get it?  Ultimately, all the world's supply is created by blue-green algae.  It is passed up the food chain to krill, to fish and shrimp, and then to predatory fish and birds, especially flamingos.  But if you are looking to make the most of this antioxidant, the best answer is supplementation.  You would have to eat a fair amount of wild caught Pacific salmon daily to get enough to impact your skin, and the price for that is prohibitive to most.  Not to mention the risk of heavy metal contamination, such as mercury.