OK, so may be that  is a bit of an exaggeration.

An apple a day doesn’t REALLY keep acne away.

… Or does it?

Let me not mince words here and give it to you straight.

The fact of the matter is that eating right is a large part of being acne free. I know you don’t necessarily want to hear this, but eating fast food a couple times a week and eating pizza every other day is not going to help to get you acne free.

We all know that eating healthy is important for all kinds of reasons. Staying acne free is just one of them.

In some ways, acne is a creation of the modern food industry. Processed foods wreak all kinds of havoc on our health. The food industry puts a ton of sugar and fat in all kinds of things. Why? Because it is cheap and because it is what people want. Why? Because people have been conditioned to believe that it tastes good.

There didn’t use to be as much sugar in, for example, bread. But over time it has become sweeter and sweeter. Used to be that sugar was rare and expensive. So people didn’t use it much. Now you can find it everywhere. And it is not even real sugar. It is high fructose corn syrup which is cheaper and easier to use. No wonder it is used so much by the food industry.

So, to get back to the apple:  If you really would be eating an apple a day, chances are that your other food choices also would be healthier. If you eat an apple a day, maybe you also eat more veggies and salad. Maybe, just for today,  you let the pizza pass you by. Maybe the sum total of all the better choices you make, will in fact make you heatlhier over time. And so, starting with an apple a day, you will indeed keep your acne away !

For further reading:

Acne and Diet

]]> http://www.sanafela.com/2009/11/can-an-apple-a-day-keep-your-acne-away/feed/ 0 http://www.sanafela.com/2009/09/do-like-woody-and-stay-acne-free/ http://www.sanafela.com/2009/09/do-like-woody-and-stay-acne-free/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:03:12 +0000 admin http://www.sanafela.com/?p=379 We all know Woody Harrelson from his appearances in unforgettable movies such as “White Men Can’t Jump”, “Kingpin” and “Natural Born Killers”.
And who could forget his splendid role as the hilarious bartender in the sitcom “Cheers” ?

Woody had tons of acne

Turns out that in his early twenties Woody had a terrible complexion and tons of acne.
Woody explains that his acne disappeared after he became a vegan. He has remained a vegan for the last 25 years and his acne never came back.

Says Woody: “It’s been at least 20 years. I used to eat burgers and steak, and I would just be knocked out afterward. I had to give it up. The first thing was dairy. I was about 24 years old and I had tons of acne and mucus. I met some random girl on a bus who told me to quit dairy and all those symptoms would go away three days later. By God she was right.”

If you are a regular here at Sana Fela, you know that we have discussed the role of diet in the development of acne before.

Looks like Woody is a good example of somebody that took that advise to heart and reaped the benefits.

Becoming a vegan helped Woody to stay acne free

Drinking milk can raise the levels of several hormones that play a key role in the development of acne. See this post for more details.
Likewise, consumption of lots of sugar can cause an increase in the production of oil by the sebaceous glands, which in turn leads to an increase in acne. The mechanism behind this is explained in this post. It is thus no wonder that a low carb diet can help prevent acne. By becoming a vegan, Woody stacked the cards to his advantage.

It is one thing to clear up an active acne out break. It is another to keep the acne from coming back.
Several solutions are available that can bring an acne outbreak under control. As you know, here at Sana Fela we are partial to using a natural Tea Tree Oil treatment, because it is simple and effective without being harsh on your skin like some of the other treatments.

How to keep acne at bay

Once you have a handle on your existing acne, how about taking steps to prevent it from returning? Have a critical look at your diet and see if there is something you can change to keep the acne away. Sounds simple? It can be if you consider changing your diet as something that is simple to do and worth it. But many of us would rather have there wisdom teeth pulled without anesthesia than to radically change our diet. Then again, maybe at least reducing things like milk, dairy and sugar in our daily diet would be worth it if it would help our skin.

Think about it. But don’t take our word for it. Ask Woody!

For further reading:

Role of diet in the development of acne

How to treat acne and prevent it from re-occuring

Since the vast majority of adolescents will suffer from Acne, an environmental factor may be the cause. One of the pillars of the Western diet is the consumption of cow’s milk. The paper points out that a study of over 10,000 teenagers has shown a strong correlation between milk consumption (particularly reduced fat milk) and Acne in teen agers. In contrast, a study of inhabitants of Papua New Guinea and of hunters and gatherers in Paraguay that do not drink or eat dairy products, shows that not a single case of Acne is found. Obviously, such results suggest that milk consumption contributes to Acne in Western society.

The milk hypothesis says that the level of growth hormone (GH, somatotropin) and Insulin-like-Growth-Factor -1 (IGF-1), which already are increased at the onset of puberty, are further increased as a result of milk consumption. These hormones are powerful mitogens and play a central role in growth and homeostasis of the skin and various other tissues. It turns out that the levels of these hormones also correlate strongly with the occurrence of Acne.

IGF-1 (as well as insulin) stimulates sebocogenesis (2) and the production of oil by the sebaceous glands (3). It is this stimulation of the sebaceous glands that results in Acne when this coincides with infection.

Now, the problem in comparing different population groups is that it is just too much of an over-simplification to pretend that two groups only differ in the aspect that you are trying to study. There are a million other things that are different between them. And a number of these could be easily also be involved in whatever the reasons are that one group has acne and the other doesn’t. So, one always has to keep this in mind when comparing population groups. Never-the-less, this data points in the direction of a potential role of milk consumption in the development of Acne.

Should we counsel our kids to drink less milk? Maybe not. There are many reasons why milk consumption is a good thing. But a link between milk and acne is an intriguing concept that is worth thinking about.

References

(1) Melnik B. Milk consumption: aggravating factor of acne and promoter of chronic diseases of Western societies. J Dtsch Dermatol Ges. 2009 Feb 19.
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19243483)

(2) Deplewski D, Rosenfield RL. Role of hormones in pilosebaceous unit development. Endocr Rev 2000; 21: 363-392
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10950157)

(3) Smith TM, Cong Z, Gilliland KL, Clawson GA, Thiboutot DM. Insulin- like growth factor-1 induces lipid production in human SEB-1 sebocytes via sterol response element-binding protein-1. J Invest Dermatol 2006; 126: 1226–1232.
(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16575389)

They reported on studies that show the negative interaction between glycemic load, insulin sensitivity, hormone mediators, and acne. It goes something like this (see the schematic):

How does sugar cause acne?

The regular consumption of foods with a high glycemic index causes an elevation of insulin levels in the blood. Chocolate and candy, but also foods that contain white flour, and soda with sugar are just a few examples of high glycemic foods. Apart from insulin resistance (which may result in diabetes), elevated insulin reduces the concentration of SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin) in the blood. This is a glycoprotein that binds sex hormones, in particular androgen (male) hormones, and keeps their levels in check. Consequently, if there is less SHBG, the levels of sex hormones go up. This, in turn, causes a stimulation of the growth of sebocytes. These are cells that secrete sebum (oil) in the hair follicles. Increased sebum secretion increases the chance for blockage and infection of the follicles which can ultimately lead to acne.

Conclusion: Chocolate and Acne don’t mix

There is more and more evidence that suggests that your diet is an important factor in how much acne you will develop. It is important to treat acne breakouts using a good tea tree oil based product before they have a chance to become more severe and result in acne scars. At the same time, scientific evidence such as presented in this post, suggests that you might want to reduce snacking on chocolate, candy, and other high sugar and high glycemic foods. Chances are that this will help reduce the number of future outbreaks.

References

(1) Spencer EH, Ferdowsian HR and Barnard ND (2009) Diet and acne: a review of the evidence. Int J Dermatol 48: 339 – 347
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19335417

Robyn Smith and co-workers reported in 2007 on a clinical trial performed at RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia). They compared the amount and severity of acne in people that were on a low-carb diet with a control group. Participants attended a baseline appointment in which extent and severity of acne were evaluated and then randomly assigned to either the low-carb or the control group. The participants in the low-carb group were put on a diet that was achieved by modifying the amount and type of carbohydrates. They were instructed to substitute high-carb foods with foods higher in protein ((e.g. lean meat, poultry and fish) or with lower glycemic index foods (e.g whole grain breads, pastas and low sugar fruits). Every month the participants were scored for changes in inflammatory lesion counts (papules, pustules and nodules) and total lesion counts. The graph above shows some of the results. After three moths, the LGL group had a much larger reduction in amount and severity of acne lesions as compared to the control group that did not control its sugar intake.

The take-home message is clear: If you eat a lot of candy or otherwise consume a lot of sugar, you increase the occurrence and severity of your acne. We all know that there are many other reasons why it is bad idea to eat a lot of sugar, but if you are plagued by acne, you better think twice before indulging in high sugar foods!

References

(1) Smith RN, Mann NJ, Braue A, et al. (2007) A low-glycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr 86: 107–115.
Abtract at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17616769
The full text of this article is available for free at http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/86/1/107