You are what you eat

Fruit and vegetable consumption is correlated with changes in skin redness and yellowness, as reported in the Mar. 7 issue of the open access journal PLoS ONE.

The researchers, led by Ross Whitehead and David Perrett of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, investigated whether the amount of fruit and vegetables eaten affects skin color. They monitored the fruit and vegetable intake for 35 individuals over six weeks and found that skin redness and yellowness increased with increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.

They also found that changes in skin color associated with increased fruit and vegetable consumption were correlated with increased attractiveness, suggesting that the skin color changes reflect improved health.

The participants in the study were primarily but not exclusively Caucasian, so further work must be done to understand potential diet effects on skin color in other populations.

Citation: Whitehead RD, Re D, Xiao D, Ozakinci G, Perrett DI (2012) You Are What You Eat: Within-Subject Increases in Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Confer Beneficial Skin-Color Changes. PLoS ONE 7(3): e32988. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032988

Financial Disclosure: This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (www.esrc.ac.uk) and by the corporation Unilever Research and Development USA (http://www.unileverusa.com/innovation/innovationinunilever/research-dev/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interest Statement: The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: This research was supported by the corporation Unilever Research and Development USA (http://www.unileverusa.com/innovation/innovationinunilever/research-dev/). The authors have no further relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in developments or marketed products. These sources of funding do not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032988

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