Treating Acne With Diet

Persistent acne that really won’t respond to treatment – or even gets worse – can be very depressing.

It is easy to feel stuck with it.

But people do successfully treat their acne with diet after years of failed medication. The diets work because they tackle the causes of acne and don’t just smother the symptoms.

In this guide I’ll take you through 8 different ways diet can treat acne and help you work out which changes to what you eat will best help you personally to clear you skin.

I’ll also share some extra info on how your current acne treatments may be making your acne worse.

WARNING : I am not a doctor and have no medical qualifications. This post is not medical advice.

Diet Changes For Acne

You have probably been told that acne is just caused by junk food and if you eat healthily all will be well.

It is NOT true.

Plenty of fruit and veg guzzling vegans suffer long term severe acne.

The real problem is that our bodies can’t handle all sorts of modern food

So to clear acne for good we need to make changes to our core diet :

1. Avoid Hidden Sugar
2. Ditch Secret Seed Oils
3. Stop Juicing
4. Swap Green Vegetables
5. Switch Dairy
6. Buy European Flour
7. Go Keto or Carnivore
8. Go Vegan

But some of these changes are crazily contradictory! How can going carnivore AND vegan both clear acne? It makes no sense.

The truth is that acne is a response to different combinations in our diets of:

• Toxic saturations and
• Nutritional shortfalls.

The trick is to spot our key triggers.

1. Avoid Hidden Sugar

We all now know sugar is horribly bad for our body in all sorts of ways.

Glucose overload from sodas, cakes, pastries and desserts is a big trigger for acid reflux, gastritis, headaches, joint pain and more PLUS acne.

But huge amounts of sugar is hiding in supposedly healthy foods like :

1. Wholemeal Bread
2. Pasta & Curry Sauces
3. Mayonnaise & Salad Dressing
4. Natural Yoghurt
5. Kombucha & Kefir
6. Vegan Ready Meals
7. Low Fat Diet Food
8. Vegan & Vegetarian Meat Swaps
9. Gluten Free Products
10. Dairy Free Products

So slash all the obvious sugar to help clear your acne but then root out the hidden sugar in the food that’s pretending to be healthy!

2. Ditch Secret Seed Oils

Many of us get a lot of calories from seed oils that can be a trigger for acne. Most seed oils are basically 20th Century inventions that can :

1. Oxidate and damage cells
2. Saturate us with Omega 6 fats
3. Deliver nutrient free calories that leave us hungry & needing more.

These can all trigger acne.

Doctors don’t all agree on the benefits and risks of eating seed oils and the quality of seed oils can vary greatly. But it seems like most of the seed oils most of us eat are poor quality and plenty of people do find ditching seed oils clears acne fast.

Common Seed Oils

Common seed oils to ditch include :

• Canola oil / rapeseed oil
• Cottonseed oil
• Grape seed oil
• Soybean oil
• Sunflower oil
• Safflower oil
• Rice bran oil
• Sesame oil
• Peanut oil.

Seeds Oils In Packaged Food

Seed oils are major ingredients in all sorts of packaged food so finding seed oil free swaps for these common culprits can help clear acne :

• Dressings, sauces & dips
• Bread
• Pastries, cakes, cookies, desserts
• Ready meals
• Protein & health bars
• Deep fried takeaways.

Seed Oil Swaps

Alternatives to seed oils for home cooking and baking include :

• Olive oil
• Avocado oil
• Coconut oil
• Butter from grass fed cows
• Beef tallow
• Ghee

It can be very hard to avoid the acne triggering hidden sugar and seed oils in processed food. So a simple meal plan of 7 quick dinners you can whip up easily from scratch however tired you are can be key to treating acne.

Some people find it easier to avoid hidden sugars and secret seed oils on a Keto diet.

3. Stop Juicing

Fruit juice and smoothies are full of vital vitamins AND fructose. Drunk daily – especially on an empty stomach – juices can saturate us with acne-triggering sugars.

Fruit sugar saturations are closely tied to fungal infections including fungal acne. Repeated fungal infections can mess with our body chemistry in complex ways and make us more vulnerable to acne.

Fruit & Fungal Acne

If you know if you have fungal acne or you have acne PLUS recurrent fungal infections – such as those below – try cutting out fruit for 6 weeks and get your vitamins from green vegetables instead :

• Athlete’s foot
• Candida
• Dandruff
• Ringworm
• Thrush.

4. Swap Green Vegetables

Green leafy vegetables are rich in vitamins but low in sugar so a good swap for fruit. They are also rich in zinc and magnesium which are critical for preventing acne.

Zinc

Getting enough zinc in our diet every day can help clear acne as it :

1. Is anti-inflammatory
2. Prevents excess oil production
3. Heals broken skin & scarring.

Magnesium & Hormonal Acne

Magnesium is a critical mineral for balancing hormones so can be a big help in clearing hormonal acne.

Sleep is also wrecked by magnesium deficiency and without good sleep, our body cannot get on top of acne or the damage done to our skin.

Acne Clearing Leafy Greens

Boosting our daily intake of these leafy green vegetables can help clear acne if we usually go short :

• Spinach
• Kale
• Collards
• Chard
• Brussel tops
• Beet greens
• Turnip greens
• Cabbage
• Broccoli

However, some people who eat lots of leafy greens still suffer severe acne and the trigger can be pesticides.

Pesticides & Acne

One form of acne called cloracne is directly tied to pesticide, fungicide & herbicide exposure. Cloracne is typically tied to exposure at work but there is a risk that growing rates of severe acne may be tied to high pesticide use on vegetables.

Lots of us upped our intake of kale, spinach & collards to boost health but may actually have increased our exposure to pesticides in doing so.

To cut the risk of pesticides as a trigger for your acne :

1. Buy organic leafy greens
2. Grow your own veggies.

I don’t have a big garden but do manage to keep us in very cheap organically grown spinach, kale, chard, collards, corn salad and more for a good part of the year.

5. Switch Dairy

Some people find ditching dairy clears acne and helps gut issues, so assume they are lactose intolerant.

But skipping all dairy is hard and can cause nutritional deficiencies e.g. magnesium if we don’t eat meat.

And the real acne trigger may not be the milk itself but what’s been added and taken out of the milk.

Intensively Farmed Milk

The mass produced, low fat milk many of us consume contains more of 3 big things we struggle to digest :

1. Omega-6 fats
2. Lactose
3. Artificial hormones.

Saturating ourselves with these may be the actual trigger for our acne.

Antibiotics given to cows on factory farms may also be passed on to us in milk unbalancing bacteria in our gut and critically for acne, our skin.

Grass Fed, Full Fat Milk

Organic grass fed, full-fat milk doesn’t have these issues and is richer in A, B and E vitamins critical for controlling and healing acne.

So you may find that switching to organic, grass fed, full fat dairy will stop your acne outbreaks.

6. Buy European Flour

Acne has been tied to gluten sensitivity but some Americans sensitive to glutinous flour at home find they are able to eat it happily in Europe without acne outbreaks.

Again the real acne trigger may be what’s done to and added to the flour not the flour itself.

Some big differences between typical stone ground European and roll milled American flour include :

1. Softer wheat
2. Higher nutrients
3. Lower gluten
4. No added enzymes
5. Not chemically bleached
6. Fewer pesticides on wheat
7. Balance for gluten from bran & wheat germ left in the flour
8. Slow risen when used in bread.

So if you are an American with acne who suspects gluten triggers your outbreak try buying European flour.

Major stores like Walmart now sell a range of stone ground Italian, British, French and German flour brands.

7. Go Keto Or Carnivore

Meat rich diets are controversial but some people with long term severe acne completely clear their skin on carnivore, Keto and GAPs diets.

Critically these diets can :

1. Eliminate key acne triggers
2. Tackle nutritional deficiencies
3. Support cell repair & renewal.

These diets all involve eliminating or greatly reducing carbohydrates. They should be followed with care following medical advice.

Not all doctors are familiar with the research on low carb diets. Use this map to find doctors who support patients following low carb diets.

Keto Diet For Acne

The low carb Keto diet can help to treat acne triggered by high blood sugar levels and insulin resistance. It can also help to reduce fungal acne.

Some people completely clear their acne in just a month on a Keto diet.

The diet is a big change as it cuts the carbs many of us abuse as an energy source. So plan your transition carefully. This guide to Keto For Beginners is a good place to start.

If you don’t have high blood sugar levels – do get tested – your issue with carbs may be a problem, as discussed above, with American flour. You could see if swapping flour cleared your acne before going Keto.

Eat More Grass Fed Beef

Some people who don’t have sugar issues do have broad spectrum mineral deficiency and clear acne simply by eating more red meat.

Traditionally beef was a big source of iron, zinc, Vitamin A, Vitamin B, copper, selenium, potassium and more but red meat consumption in the UK halved since 1980.

Choosing good quality ground beef instead of nutritionally poor, factory-farmed chicken may make good the mineral deficiency behind your acne and save money at the same time.

GAPS Diet For Acne

Severe acne can be a sign our bodies cannot tolerate modern industrially produced food and a symptom of profound damage to our gut.

The GAPS Diet was designed to heal this damage and some people have used it successfully to clear their acne completely …

The GAPS Diet is complex but may help heal acne and other chronic health issues if you feel able to commit to the restrictions at different stages of the diet.

Carnivore Diet For Acne

The carnivore diet is basically a short term elimination diet which lets us :

1. Ditch all modern industrial food
2. Fix nutritional shortfalls with good quality meat, fish, eggs & dairy
3. Repair & replace damaged gut and skin cells quickly and efficiently.

The diet contradicts standard healthy eating advice but some people have used the diet to heal acne after all else failed and plant rich diets made their acne worse.

The carnivore diet may be especially successful in clearing acne for long term vegetarians and vegans who have been heavily exposed to pesticides in plant food.

The issue isn’t well understood but it is possible long term pesticide exposure triggers broad and ongoing intolerance to plant food.

The carnivore diet is controversial and should not be taken on lightly without research and planning. There is a simple introduction here to starting a carnivore diet.

8. Go Vegan

So we’ve seen a carnivore diet clear acne BUT now we have the vegan diet clearing acne too …

It seems crazily contradictory but a vegan diet can clear acne by cutting vitamin shortfalls and saturations of:

1. Omega 6 fats
2. Artificial hormones
3. Excess antibiotics.

So if you’ve had a diet low in plants and high in animal products a vegan diet could clear your acne.

But remember, it is an extreme elimination diet – like the carnivore diet – and can trigger nutritional shortfalls and saturations that cause other issues e.g. gastritis, IBS.

We can also slash saturations of omega 6 fats, artificial hormones and excess antibiotics by eating meat & dairy from animals that are :

• Organic
• Outdoors all year
• Pasture fed
• NOT grain finished.

Which Diet Should I Follow To Clear My Acne?

OK, so we’ve seen 8 different diet changes that can help clear acne but where on earth should you start?

Well there are core steps in these diets that will help all of us :

1. Test for nutritional shortfalls e.g. iron, magnesium and fix them.
2. Slash added sugar.
3. Ease up on fruit sugar.
4. Test for sugar saturation (HbA1c) and cut carbohydrates if found.
5. Avoid pesticides on veg & flour.
6. Avoid excess omega 6 fats in seed oils and in grain fed meat & dairy.
7. Avoid meat and dairy from animals with supplemental hormones.
8. Avoid excess antibiotics.

These core changes can cut dietary triggers for acne for most of us.

If acne doesn’t clear in 3 months consider a relevant elimination diets for a controlled period of time.

• High carb diet : Keto
• Vegans & veggies : Carnivore
• Low plant meat eaters : Vegan

Remember there is no one size fits all diet to clear acne : it will depend on our own personal nutritional shortfalls and toxic saturations.

Should I Change My Skincare Routine For Acne?

The right dietary changes for us personally can clear acne but we may also need to fix our skincare.

And that’s because some acne treatments make acne worse long term by causing damage to our :

• Skin Microbiome
• Epidermal Barrier

Healthy Skin Microbiome

Common acne treatments, like Benzoyl peroxide, attack the C. Acnes bacteria on our skin.

But some dermatologists believe C. Acnes is not on its own a problem.

Our skin microbiome – like our gut – should be alive with bacteria and fungi but these can be destroyed by poor diet and harsh cleansers. C. Acnes may actually only trigger acne in the absence of balancing bacteria.

Acne treatments that dry out skin deplete our skin microbiome even more, letting C. Acnes return with a vengeance. Treatments for fungal acne can cause similar cycles.

Gentler cleansers break the cycle of damage and let our skin microbiome balance itself.

Epidermal Barrier Damage

Harsh acne treatments can also damage the epidermal barrier which protects us from external toxins.

Acne may sometimes be triggered by chemicals in products like air fresheners and scented candles. Damage to our epidermal barrier by harsh acne treatments may make us more vulnerable to these toxins.

The damage can be another reason why acne gets worse over time.

So avoid harsh cleansers to stop environmental damage to skin.

And there you go, a big guide to treating acne with diet plus simple changes to your skincare routine.

For more natural treatments for skin problems triggered by saturations and shortfalls in our diets check out these posts :

• Athletes Foot Treatments
• Blackhead Removal Treatments
• Frizzy Hair Home Remedies
• Natural Dandruff Treatments
• Natural Cold Sore Remedies

Follow me on Pinterest …

Original image sources : Bone Broth under Creative Commons