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Diet and Acne - Cooked Proteins & Acne - Caloric Intake & Acne
- Cut down on skin sinners
- Eat more skin savers
- Make sure you get enough vitamins and minerals
Why is there little research into diet and acne?
Because there's no money in it. Drug companies fund most research and if the aim is to find a link between acne and diet, there's no drug candidate at the end of it.
This is also why, through no fault of their own, doctors and dermatologists always say there is no link between diet and acne — when they were training in their profession there was little documented research to say diet can aggravate acne. Their argument for this is based around the fact that diet doesn't cause acne — you may have acne and eat relatively healthily, while your friend eats fried food, chocolate, pizza etc and stays blemish-free.
This is because several factors affect some people getting acne and others don't. If you are predisposed to get acne, diet can aggravate it.
There is recent research pointing the finger at diet — eating refined carbohydrates and sugar leads to a surge in insulin and an insulin-like growth factor called IGF-1. This in turn leads to an excess of male hormones, which encourage the skin to excrete large amounts of sebum. This grease-like substance when trapped inside the follicles encourages the growth of bacteria responsible for acne. Scientists believe the modern Western diet is to blame.
Most modern diseases, including acne and much more serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease, are caused by diet. Our natural diet is fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. When you cook many of the foods that have become the staple diet of people today (bread, pasta etc), they become similar in chemical structure as sugar and cause the following reaction in the body:
Refined carbs/sugar = more insulin = more hormones = more sebum (oil) = more bacteria = more acne.
In cooked food many of the vitamins and minerals have been destroyed and virtually all of the enzymes, this means the body has to work even harder to digest and absorb what nutrition is left. Increasing temperature causes exponential increase in the rate of chemical reactions. When food is heated, the rate of reactions of degradation and oxidation of nutrients increases dramatically. As a result, we consume fewer nutrients and more acne aggravating free radicals.
The molecular structure of cooked food has changed so much, the body doesn't recognise it and produces white blood cells to ptrotect itself from them (leukocytosis) — this is what happens when we are sick. When you put raw food in the body, it doesn't produce white blood cells and digestive leukocytosis does not occur. What does that tell you?
And, because the molecular structure of food has changed in the cooking process, there are free radicals (atoms or groups of atoms with an odd (unpaired) number of electrons) floating around the blood stream.
Free radicals are what people commonly refer to as 'toxins'. In a person with acne, often the digestive system is sluggish — from poor diet and/or antibiotics. This means it doesn't work efficiently to get rid of toxins and absorb nutrients from food, and these toxins are expelled via the skin and usually end up attracting moisture in the dermis and pinching-off the sebum chanells which blocks them and causes acne bacteria to quickly reproduce inside and the cascade of events leading to acne breakouts is there again and again.
The value of antioxidants
Nutritionists are always telling us of the value of antioxidants — they mop up free radicals. This is basically what a detox diet does, it's full of antioxidant food to get rid of the toxins. If you put the right fuel in, you can expect dramatic results. A diet rich in antioxidant food will help reduce acne.
Why is diet important?
Refined carbs/sugar = more insulin = more hormones = more sebum (oil) = more bacteria = more acne We're always being told that a diet of pizza and chocolate doesn't cause acne, which may be true to a certain extent, but certain foods can aggravate acne. Simply by cutting down on the foods that can aggravate acne and eating more foods that can help alleviate acne your skin condition will improve.
Elimination diets
For a period of one month, try cutting out all the food listed on the skin sinners list. Make all your meals from fresh, preferably organic, foods from the skin savers list. Try not to overcook your food and stick to mainly salads, quick stir fries and soups. Eat plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts. Experiment with fruit smoothies and juices. After the month is up, add one food from the skin sinners list for a week and see if your skin reacts. Don't add more than one food at a time or you won't know which your skin has reacted to. The following week, add a different food and remove the first. Continue until you're happy with the foods you're eating.
Detoxing
Detoxing is very similar to an elimination diet in that you remove potentially aggravating foods and eat only foods that are cleansing. People do detox diets for various lengths of time, from a couple of days, a week to a month. It is generally better to continuously eat a good healthy diet all the time, however you could kick start with a detox.
Bear in mind that if the detox is very different from your normal daily food consumption, you may feel less energetic. Try and do a detox when you can relax.
When you're on a detox, you need to avoid eating all meat (including chicken), fish, dairy, processed foods, chocolate, wheat, alcohol, caffiene, cigarettes and fizzy drinks. Eat only fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds and drink bottled mineral water.
After you've finished the detox, try to stick to a diet consisting mainly of the foods that can help acne. If you go and eat foods that can aggravate acne, you may suffer a breakout. Detoxing itself can bring on a breakout, this is a sign that your body is cleansing from the inside.
Continue to eat cleansing foods and your kidneys and liver will do all the detoxing for you and it won't show up as acne on your face. Our bodies get rid of toxins in the easiest way possible, people with acne often have sluggish digestive systems and inefficient liver and/or kidneys and so the body gets rid of toxins through the skin. By helping your body to work more efficiently to flush out the toxins, your acne will fade.
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| Did you Know? |
| Hey! Your not alone, an estimated eighty percent of the people suffer from some form of acne in their life! Learn more... who gets acne? |
| Acne Facts |
| The skin responds to acne bacteria by producing Hydrogen Peroxide to kill them, generating free radicals that cause premature skin aging very much like acne products with benzoyl peroxide. Learn more... acne and aging |
| Scientific Research |
| In recent years research has changed the perception of acne from being caused mainly by acne bacteria that normally lives in symbiosis in human's hair follicles but gets out of control, to a perception of acne as an immoderate inflammatory reaction. Read more... acne inflammation |
| What causes the Acne? |
| Several factors are involved in acne breakouts. Central are untreated lesions caused to the cells lining the sebum canals by its first outflow to the surface during puberty and also when sebum can not outflow swiftly to the surface. Read more... causes of acne lesions |