Radiant Health Radiant Skin

Radiant Health, Radiant Skin: A Complete and Revolutionary Guide to Lifelong Healthy Skin.

Forget painful chemical peels and filler injections. Radiant Health, Radiant Skin is the complete guide to help your skin look its best at every stage of your life - the natural way!

The skin is our largest, most sensitive organ and its health affects every aspect of our lives. From lasering, resurfacing, chemical peels and Botox to facelifts and long-term antibiotics, there is no end to the risky and expensive procedures and products on the market.

In Radiant Health, Radiant Skin Dr Megan Mathews and Alison Cassar draw on over 30 years of combined clinical experience to provide you with expert knowledge on how to deal with your skin's underlying issues and work on the inner health that may be contributing to skin damage.

Radiant Health, Radiant Skin will show you how to:

Care for your skin from the inside out

Make the best of your skin type and condition

Support its natural ups and downs

Learn effective strategies for common skin problems

Fight the signs of ageing with non-surgical treatments

Complete with skin care tables, diagrams and an easy to follow index, Radiant Health, Radiant Skin also contains an entire section of healthy and delicious recipes to ensure you have all the nutrients you need to rejuvenate your skin.

Why did you decide to write this book?

Dr Megan Mathews: The skin is our largest, most sensitive organ. Its health affects every aspect of our lives, evoking strong emotions and making us take risky and expensive measures to 'fix' it - longterm antibiotics, steroids, lasering, resurfacing, chemical peels, Botox, filler injections and facelifts. While offering relief, these practices can also suppress symptoms, ignore underlying issues and even damage the skin and inner health.

Our clinical experiences have shown us that there are successful alternatives to these treatments. We regularly see skin problems resolve with the thoughtful and appropriate use of natural remedies that protect, nourish and rejuvenate the skin, while dealing with their underlying causes.

Radiant Health, Radiant Skin will show you how to improve your skin's health and beauty with a skincare regime suited to your skin type, its current condition and the changes you can expect over your life to come. No other book we know does this. We recommend a wide range of effective non-toxic natural cleansers, exfoliants, moisturisers and Skinfoods that can be found in your kitchen cupboards, at a health store or on the worldwide web.

There are 2 other reasons we wrote the book. As clinicians, we see that the skin is a mirror of inner health. So, to have radiant skin it's necessary to cultivate radiant health. The skin is visibly influenced by food and emotions as well as the digestive, eliminative, hormonal, immune and antioxidant systems. By improving inner health, you automatically improve the health and beauty of the skin. And, by improving the skin with the techniques outlined in the book, you improve the whole body's health. It's a win-win situation.

So, we wrote a book that covers what we'd like to tell our patients about skin, given the opportunity and enough time. Our book is full of background information as well as practical and effective strategies for everyday skincare. It contains a Quick-fix programme that can be done in the week coming up to a special event as well as longer programmes that address chronic health and skin issues. However, it's important to remember that this book is not designed to take the place of medical advice and the care of a good practitioner. Instead, our aim is to educate and empower so you can look after your skin and work more effectively with your practitioner. Using the information and strategies in our book, you will be able to discuss the causes of your skin problems, the impact of other health issues plus the appropriateness and success of treatment options.

Also, we wrote with the practitioner in mind. The book covers the naturopathic, wholistic approach to skincare and is packed with clear, easy to understand explanations of the fundamental processes underlying skin problems and treatments. It acts as a comprehensive review for practitioners and by getting their patients to read this book they'll save time and improve treatment compliance.


What makes natural products better for our skin?

Dr Megan Mathews: There are 4 major advantages in using natural products for our skin.

You can avoid the fillers, stabilisers and preservatives found in commercial skincare and cosmetics. These are added to improve shelf life and create a product that looks, feels and smells 'right'

When you get nutrients or herbs from a freshly opened capsule or freshly mixed mask, you maximise the potency of their active ingredients. Many nutrients start to break down once combined with other chemicals or exposed to heat, light and oxygen

You can choose the active form you need. Undiluted natural vitamin E from a capsule usually works quicker and better than a moisturiser containing small amounts and often a synthetic form of this vitamin. Likewise, taking herbs and nutrients as supplements works faster than eating foods containing them. A vitamin C supplement, for example, will more rapidly reduce infection and inflammation than vitamin C-rich foods

Using highly active nutrients and herbs allows you to quickly see what works for your skin. With this information you can construct an individual skincare regime that meets the changing needs of your skin type and condition

When using natural products, it's important to remember that more of a 'good thing' is not necessarily better and 'natural' does not equal 'risk-free'. Although the herbs and nutrients we recommend are natural and generally safe, it doesn't mean they can be used excessively and without respect for their potency. We chose them because they are powerful and make a difference to the skin. However, even robust healthy people can react to natural 'safe' substances if they're used inappropriately and thoughtlessly. And, reactive people always need to be very careful with anything new. So no matter what your skin type or condition, it's best to start with a low dose and patch test on the sensitive skin of the inner forearm before using a new natural product either widely or in stronger concentrations.

And, each nutrient or herb will not suit everyone. Read about them and try out the ones that seem most appropriate for you. Use them singly or combined, adjust their strength to suit your skin, and talk to a practitioner. This way you get the best outcomes.


Does what we eat affect our skin?

Dr Megan Mathews: What we eat walks and talks tomorrow. Everything you eat, or don't eat, affects the health and beauty of your skin. This means, no matter what your skin type or condition, it can be improved by diet. Perhaps the simplest and most beneficial habit to adopt is 85% of the time (18 out of 21 weekly meals) to have well-balanced nutritious food and drink that suit your body. Then you can usually have treats without them causing problems to the skin.

As food affects each of us differently, no single diet fits all. And as the skin's condition and responses naturally change over time, so your diet needs to be constantly tweaked if you want to continue getting the best results. The section Best Skin Diet explains which are the most beneficial foods, combinations and preparation methods. It also shows how the diet needs to be adjusted over time depending on changing personal factors such as age, skin condition and general health as well as external influences such as weather, time of day and season.

Best skin diet recommends 7 dietary practices to improve skin health and beauty.

Eat a varied and delicious diet

Avoid harmful foods

Balance hot/cold foods depending on skin condition

Balance acid/alkaline foods depending on skin condition

Minimise allergic and intolerant foods

Maintain whole body hydration

Provide the skin with the macro and micro-nutrients it needs for health


Is it possible to fight ageing with out surgery? If this is possible why are people turning to lasering, Botox and cosmetic surgery?

Dr Megan Mathews: Lasering, Botox and cosmetic surgery are quick skin fixes. For some women they are miraculous and life-saving but for other they are unnecessary and expensive risks. While offering relief, these practices can also suppress symptoms, ignore underlying issues and even damage the skin and inner health.

Our clinical experiences have shown us that there are successful alternatives to these treatments. We regularly see skin problems resolve with the thoughtful and appropriate use of natural remedies that protect, nourish and rejuvenate the skin, while dealing with their underlying causes.

Natural skincare is the slow path. But the rewards are increased skin beauty and health as well as increased general wellbeing. For many women this is a much more important life goal.


Is your book easy to read and follow for busy women?

Dr Megan Mathews: I hope the book clearly explains how to look after the skin from the outside and the inside out. And I hope busy women will find it easy to follow. However, our intention was to write down everything we'd like to tell our patients given time and opportunity and so the book is dense with information and contains 4 programmes. I hope busy women will find it worthwhile putting in the extra time and effort to work through its recommendations. After all, the reward is healthy skin, slowed ageing and increased general wellbeing.


If you want your skin to look its best at every stage of your life, this book is for you!

Dr Megan Mathews Mathews is a medical doctor who also has extensive experience and training in nutrition, herbs, acupuncture, osteopathy, kinesiology and spiritual medicine. She has a special interest in the skin as a reflection of inner health and happiness. Megan runs busy practices in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and regularly teaches and presents at conferences.

Alison Cassar is a naturopath and nutritionist who specialises in the treatment of skin conditions. She divides her time between a busy clinic in Sydney's inner west and raising two children.

Radiant Health, Radiant Skin: A Complete and Revolutionary Guide to Lifelong Healthy Skin
Harper Collins Publishers Australia
Authors: Dr Megan Mathews and Alison Cassar.
ISBN: 9780733325175
Price: $35.00