What you eat affects every part of your body, and that includes your largest organ: your skin.
Studies have found that some foods contain nutrients that can reduce inflammation, protect against sun damage and potentially even help your skin look more youthful. These include foods that are typically found in the Mediterranean diet — things like fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds and olive oil. But some foods can have the opposite effect. Eating highly processed carbs, sugar and other foods that spike hormones like insulin can contribute to acne and potentially lead your skin to age more quickly.
One person who knows this well is Michelle Henry, a dermatologist and dermatologic surgeon. Henry is a clinical instructor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College and the chief executive and founder of Skin & Aesthetic Surgery of Manhattan.
We wanted to learn more about the relationship between nutrition and skin health. So, we caught up with Henry to find out which foods you should eat (and avoid) for better-looking skin; whether collagen, vitamins and other supplements work; and which daily lifestyle habits can age your skin surprisingly quickly.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell us about the foods that are best for your skin?
The eating pattern with the most evidence behind it is the Mediterranean one. Lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts, legumes, olive oil, fish. I tell patients there’s no single miracle food. It’s the whole pattern that does the work. All of those foods are full of compounds like vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, polyphenols, and omega-3 fatty acids, and they tend to work together. They support your skin’s antioxidant defenses, they calm inflammation, and they help maintain the structure underneath.
A few things I point to specifically: brightly colored produce, so berries, tomatoes, leafy greens, citrus, because that’s where you get vitamin C, which your body actually needs to build collagen, plus carotenoids that are mildly protective against sun damage. Olive oil is a big one for me. People who eat more of the monounsaturated fat in olive oil tend to show less facial photoaging, and it contains an anti-inflammatory compound called oleocanthal.
Fatty fish like salmon and sardines give you omega-3s, which quiet down inflammatory signaling and can even help with acne. There’s also a large study of French women that found the more closely people followed a Mediterranean diet, the lower their risk of skin cancer, melanoma included. I don’t oversell that one, but it’s a good reminder that what you eat and what shows up on your skin are connected in ways we’re still working out.
Can you talk about the foods that are bad for your skin?
High-glycemic foods — white bread, sugary snacks, a lot of processed carbs — spike your insulin, and a hormone called IGF-1 and that whole cascade can feed acne. Dairy points in the same direction, skim milk especially. The link with acne is modest but pretty consistent, and it’s strongest at around two glasses a day. Refined sugar also drives the formation of what are called advanced glycation end products. In plain terms, sugar molecules latch onto your collagen and elastin and stiffen them, and skin ages faster as a result.
I do want to be careful here. These are tendencies, not guarantees. I’m not going to tell somebody that an occasional bowl of ice cream is wrecking their face. If a patient has a specific problem, like stubborn adult acne, or rosacea, where alcohol and spicy food and hot drinks are common triggers, then yes, it’s worth paying attention to. For most people, it comes down to the overall balance.
I’ve heard that eating collagen is good for your skin. Is that true?
This is the question I get more than any other, and my honest answer is that the evidence is genuinely mixed, and lately it’s gotten murkier instead of clearer. The earlier round of studies looked encouraging. Pooled together, they suggested that hydrolyzed collagen improved skin hydration, elasticity and wrinkles over about three months. But a more careful analysis in 2025 did something I think was important. It sorted the studies by who paid for them. Once you set aside the industry-funded studies and the lower-quality ones, the benefit basically disappeared. No real effect on hydration, elasticity or wrinkles. The authors landed on the conclusion that right now there isn’t solid clinical evidence that collagen supplements prevent or treat skin aging.
So when patients ask, I give it to them straight. It probably won’t hurt you, it’s generally safe, but you may mostly be buying an expensive way to eat protein. If someone wants to spend money on their skin, sunscreen and a decent moisturizer are a far better use of it.
Are there any supplements that are good for your skin?
A handful have promising evidence, even if none of it is airtight. Vitamin C and vitamin E both do real work — C in collagen synthesis and antioxidant defense, and E in protecting your cell membranes from oxidative damage. Polyphenols, the kind you find in green tea extract, curcumin and resveratrol, show antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and there are some early signals around UV protection. There’s even some interesting research on cocoa flavanols possibly making skin a little more resistant to UV-induced redness. Niacinamide and vitamin D have supporting roles, too.
But I always come back to the same caveat. For most of these, the evidence is thin and inconsistent, and I’d much rather a person get these compounds from a varied diet than from a shelf of bottles. Food delivers them in combinations and amounts your body handles well. A supplement can’t fix a poor diet.
Do you personally take any supplements for skin health?
I keep it minimal, and honestly not for my skin specifically. I take vitamin D, mostly because, like a lot of people who spend the day indoors and wear sunscreen, I don’t get much sun. Past that, I try to get what I need from food. I think that our bodies are evolutionarily optimized for whole foods. I’m a little wary of being the dermatologist who’s secretly running on a dozen capsules. That’s not the example I want to set.
What’s a typical breakfast for you?
On weekday mornings, I’m pretty routine, because it’s one less thing to decide. Most days, it’s plain Greek yogurt with a big handful of mixed berries, a spoonful of walnuts, and a little olive oil and ground flax on top. The olive oil throws people off, but olive oil on yogurt is genuinely good. Then black coffee, and a glass of water before the coffee. The reasoning is everything I just described. Berries for the antioxidants and vitamin C, walnuts and flax for the omega-3s, yogurt for protein. On weekends, I’ll switch to eggs with sautéed greens and tomatoes, usually with some avocado.
I keep it low in the fast-digesting sugary carbs on purpose. I’m not starting the day with a pastry and a sweet latte, not because I’m scared of it, but because I feel better, and it lines up with what I’d tell a patient anyway.
What do you usually eat for lunch and dinner?
Lunch is usually a big grain-and-vegetable bowl. Something like farro or quinoa, a pile of roasted or raw vegetables, olive oil and lemon, and chickpeas or a piece of chicken or fish, typically wild salmon.
Dinner is where I lean hardest on the fish. A few nights a week, it’s salmon, sardines or mackerel with vegetables and a salad in olive oil. Other nights, it’s a lentil or bean dish, or roasted vegetables with whole grains. I drink water with dinner and keep alcohol occasional. None of this is rigid, by the way. I eat dessert. I just don’t plan my whole day around it.
Which daily habits have a surprisingly big impact on skin health?
This is my favorite thing to talk about, because people expect me to say “buy this serum,” and instead I say sleep. Poor sleep pushes up your cortisol, and that impairs collagen production, dries the skin out and slows the overnight repair of your skin barrier. A lot of that restoration is happening while you sleep.
Stress is the close cousin. Chronic stress runs through the same hormonal machinery, and it’s a well-known trigger for flares of acne, eczema, psoriasis and rosacea. Patients can sometimes tell me when their hardest months were just from looking at their skin. Exercise genuinely helps, probably through better circulation and lower inflammation throughout the body.
Do you use sunscreen every day?
Every single day, rain or shine, all year. It’s the one thing in my own routine I won’t skip, and it’s the most effective antiaging step there is. The evidence is tough to argue with. In a big, long-term trial, people who used sunscreen regularly had dramatically lower rates of squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma and melanoma. That’s cancer prevention, not vanity.
Any parting advice for our readers?
I’d put it this way. Eat the way the evidence points, which means a Mediterranean-style diet built around plants, olive oil, fish and nuts, and go easy on refined sugar, high-glycemic foods and too much dairy. Wear broad spectrum sunscreen every day, seek shade, and cover up. Protect your sleep and manage your stress, because both of those show up on your skin more than any cream will. Don’t smoke, go easy on alcohol, and stay hydrated. You can add a supplement or two if you want. But treat a good diet as the foundation. Nothing in a bottle replaces it.
And maybe the most freeing thing I can tell you is this: Skin health isn’t about perfection or some elaborate 12-step routine. It’s a small set of boring, consistent habits done most days. The basics, done faithfully, will beat the fanciest products used here and there.
Do you have a question about healthy eating? Email [email protected] and we may answer your question in a future column.
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