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Mar 3

The Link Between Diet and Acne: How Giving Up Dairy and Sugar Can Clear Your Skin – The Beet

Diet Comments Off on The Link Between Diet and Acne: How Giving Up Dairy and Sugar Can Clear Your Skin – The Beet

You might have thought you kissed acne goodbye when you left your teens. Not so fast. Acne can still strike when youre in your 30s, 40s and 50s. Youre not even off the hook if you were a lucky teen who escaped this growing pain, as adult-onset acne can happen to you, too.

While there are numerous prevention and treatment options for acne, theres one you may never have considered: Changing your diet. Growing evidence suggests that components of your diet can cause or worsen acne, says Caroline Robinson, M.D., a board-certified dermatologist and founder of Tone Dermatology in Chicago. Although research is still somewhat scant on this topic, some facts are evident: Unhealthy foods and certain animal products drive skin issues like acne while plants may have the opposite effect.

When you have acne, four main changes happen in the skin, including increased sebum (or oil), clogging of your pores by excess skin, bacterial overgrowth and inflammation. Adult women, by the way, are more prone to acne than adult men, which could be driven by hormones. Heres the link to diet, though: Theoretically, any food that promotes excess sebum or inflammation can make acne worse, Robinson says.

Start first with high glycemic foods. These are foods that cause a spike in blood sugar levels after you eat like white bread, rice, cookies and cakes. High glycemic index foods increase insulin and other things in the body that lead to increased skin inflammation and increased oil production, says Rajani Katta, M.D., dermatologist and author of Glow: The Dermatologists Guide to a Whole Foods Younger Skin Diet who serves on the voluntary clinical faculty of Baylor College of Medicine and the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas in Houston. Studies show that after people follow a 12-week diet with a low glycemic load, a measure thats obtained by multiplying the quality of a foods carbohydrate by the amount of carbohydrates in one serving of that food, oil glands get smaller.

Dairy and whey products can also drive acne. Take, for instance, studies with bodybuilders which reveal that those taking whey protein supplements develop acne. Heres the kicker, though: In some cases, although they havent responded to acne medications, their skin improves when they stop taking whey protein, Katta says.

Why might dairy be so damaging to the skin? By increasing the production of sebum in the hair follicle, dairy and whey contribute to worsening acne, Robinson says. Other hormones and sugars in the dairy may also play a role.

Studies on how plant-based diets benefit acne arent as robust as the studies on how certain foods trigger acne. Yet there is evidence to suggest that people who eat a diet higher in naturally occurring antioxidants from plants tend to have less acne, Katta says.

And theres a plethora of anecdotal evidence about how skin health improves after eating a plant-only diet. If you begin excluding foods like dairy and processed foods from your diet, theres a good likelihood that your skin will be clear, says Hana Kahleova, M.D., Ph.D., director of clinical research with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, adding that many individuals in its studies report this as a major benefit.

Acne aside, a whole-food, plant-based diet has other noticeable effects on the skin. For starters, research shows that if you eat a plethora of fruits and vegetables, especially those that are high in betacarotene (think carrots, sweet potatoes and red and yellow peppers), you have a rosier glow to your skin, Katta says. Even better? Wrinkles may be reduced on a plant-only diet. In one study, folks who loaded their diet with more fruits and vegetables appeared younger than those who were on a meat-rich diet.

If youre struggling with acne and want to try some food fixes to correct it, start by eliminating or limiting the added sugar from your diet. Youll have to experiment to learn how much added sugar your skin can actually tolerate, as some cant handle any while others can handle a small amount, Katta says. Follow the World Health Organizations recommendation and aim to get no more than six teaspoons of added sugars a day. And note that chocolate can, unfortunately, be an acne trigger for some people, Kahleova says.

Then work on getting the dairy out of the diet. First, if youre taking whey protein, eliminate that from your diet and switch to plant-based protein supplements. Then do some trial and error with plant-based milk and other non-dairy products to find which ones you like best. Just dont expect changes overnight, as it usually takes about eight weeks for acne to respond to a dietary change like this, Katta says.

Finally, move that diet as close to plant-only as possible, which will guarantee that youre eating large amounts of fiber. Fiber-rich foods can help maintain blood sugar levels, which may play a big role in some peoples acne, Katta says. Among them, low-glycemic index foods like beans, certain fruits, vegetables and steel-cut oats may be particularly beneficial for your skin.

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The Link Between Diet and Acne: How Giving Up Dairy and Sugar Can Clear Your Skin - The Beet

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