To prevent skin chilblains in winter, in addition to keeping local areas warm, you can also eat some sunflower seeds.
Hands, feet, cheeks, and ears are the main areas that are prone to freezing. Besides the cold causing skin blood vessels to constrict and blood to stagnate, which leads to skin freezing, other common causes of chilblains include autonomic nervous system dysfunction, vitamin deficiency, and malnutrition.
Therefore, you can make clever adjustments to your diet. It is advisable to moderately increase your intake of high-protein and high-vitamin foods, especially those rich in vitamin E, such as sunflower seeds, walnuts, and sesame seeds.
Vitamin E is an excellent antioxidant that helps maintain the health of nerves and muscle tissues and makes the capillary walls more stable. This allows the originally stagnant blood circulation to return to normal flow. Additionally, sunflower seeds are relatively high in calories, which can help withstand the cold climate.
Since vitamin E is so "powerful," would applying it directly to the skin surface provide better protection against frostbite?
In fact, this idea is not feasible because long-term topical use of vitamin E may cause the skin to become dependent. If discontinued, it can lead to a rebound effect, such as skin dryness.
It should be noted that the aroma of sunflower seeds stimulates the taste buds on the tongue, prompting the salivary glands and other digestive organs to work. This leads to a relatively abundant secretion of saliva and gastric juice, which contain various digestive enzymes. Therefore, eating sunflower seeds after a meal can activate the entire digestive system, aiding in the absorption of vitamin E and protein from the seeds. Generally, eating about 50 grams of sunflower seeds after a meal is sufficient (patients with high blood pressure, high blood sugar, etc., should adjust the amount accordingly).
Of course, if the skin is frostbitten, it is important to avoid improper treatment methods to prevent skin erosion and ulcers. Especially if the frostbitten area itches, scratching it directly with your hands or applying a "hot compress" for immediate relief can actually accelerate the breakdown of the frostbitten skin and even pose a risk of infection.