Brazil nuts comes from a tree in South America. The tree is native to South American countries, including Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil. The alkaline nut has great health benefits because they are packed with nutrition. Due to its very high selenium content, Brazil nuts are great for giving the skin a healthy glow, eliminating wrinkles, improving the elasticity of the skin, eliminating premature aging, and last but not least, getting rid of acne. This occurs because selenium stimulates the activity of glutathione, a powerful antioxidant compound that removes free radicals from the skin cells.
In a 1990 study, researchers examined data from the blood of 37 men aged 18 to 25, all of whom had very bad acne, and measured it against 37 other men who didn’t. The men with acne problems had much lower selenium levels. The men who were free of acne had blood and plasma levels of 1.80 and 1.36 respectively, whereas the acne-riddled men had numbers of 1.59 and 1.22. Women with acne were also analysed and the results were the same; 1.93 and 1.34 for the women without acne and 1.50/1.10 for the women with acne.
Scientists in a recent study, fed 29 acne patients 0.2mg of selenium, two times a day for 6-12 weeks. Nearly all the participants faces were clear of acne at the end of the experiment. The scientists thus concluded – “the results obtained in this study showed the beneficial effects of using… selenium to patients with acne vulgaris”.
This makes it clear that selenium can be great for acne and the skin and eating Brazil nuts is a great way to get this nutrient.
A 100 gram cup of Brazil nuts contains over 3000% of the RDA. One study took 59 New Zealanders and placed them on different feeding programs, including 2 Brazil nuts per day and a placebo. Selenium levels in the Brazil nut group shot up by 64.2% in just 8 weeks, but the levels of the placebo group barely changed.
Nutritionist experts recommend eating no more then 3-5 Brazil nuts a day, claiming that selenium won’t provide any extra acne benefits past consuming that amount. They also warn that having too much selenium in the body can have an adverse effect on health.
