How to cure your acne with nutrition and hormone regulation

Intro/ Acne’s effects With Diet

• 85% of teenagers have acne

  • A history of moderate to severe acne is highly correlated with increased risk of breast and prostate cancer

    • Hormonal based and TOR
    • It is considered a western disease and is far less and even nonexistent in many countries, especially less industrialised

  • TOR activity is known to be raised with moderate amounts of dairy and any processed foods

    • Increased TOR is correlated to premature puberty, acne, cancer, expedited cellular aging, diabetes, alzhimer’s and more

Acne and Hormones

• 70% of all young adults have skin problems during puberty

  • Most times acne significantly improves as an adult, (over 25yrs) but 40% still are affected by it, predominantly women at 85% of them

  • Adult Onset in the “t-zone” of the forehead, nose and chin is a correlated sign of hormone imbalance, usually high testosterone

  • Same with the chin strap

  • During puberty, male and females get a surge in all hormones, including androgens

  • This stimulates sebrum in sebaceous glands, and too much accumulation causes acne

    • Too little causes cracked dry skin, too much can cause a hard plug around follicle to cause acne
    • For men, our hormones typically stabilize after puberty, women is a different story

  • Monthly fluctuations for 20 years, massive changes post menopause, pregnancy causes several more monthly surges.

  • Earmuff talk for The Mad Scientist;- premenstral acne

    • Women are most likely to get it in the 2nd half of their cycle

    • Progesterone and Oestrogen increase heavily in the first 2 weeks, and then plummet right before…”it” happens and they are at their lowest

      • When they drop, testosterone is actually higher than most female reproductive hormones, sebrum is still high from progesterone boost, and acne is likely - Some women find that contraceptives help via SHBG (sex-hormone binding globulin) sponges up testosterone with increases estrogens and decreases sebrum, and acne

The Gut to Skin Axis

• If there is SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) and the gut is inflamed, it rapidly causes systemic inflammation via inflammatory cytokines throughout the body

  • Skin is the largest organ of the body so no wonder it frequently gets attacked
  • This is leaky gut, what occurs with food sensitivites and allergies that aren’t in check, SAD diet, etc
  • Skin, brain fog, and bloating are the most common symptoms when there is a gut issue, and when it is the primary factor involved, going on a precise healthy lifestyle for the individual typically causes rapid changes in all 3 areas.

Dairy Acne

• Research showed that dairy and sugar are among the greatest factors associated with acne. In this analysis, more people with acne consume dairy products (48.2%) compared to those who don’t (38.8%). People who regularly eat soda, pastries, chocolates and other sweets were also more likely to suffer from acne

  • There is also all the sugar that is in milk, as well as inflammatory for many people with sensitivities which increases acne chance

  • Acne is mostly a Western civilization disease with 85% of adolescents having it

  • Aside from a random pimple or 2, basically unheard of in eastern cultures, especially those without high glycemic packaged foods and dairy

  • The majority of our milk comes from pregnant cows where their hormones are even higher than normal, but then we add hormones to them to produce even more.

  • Appears to be a part of hormonal acne.

  • We aren’t cows, and we aren’t meant to be drinking milk from mothers into and beyond our 20’s anyway! Not very natural

    • I don’t drink human milk at this age, nor should we (colostrum is a different topic) but it would still be better as our bodies were made a little

Does Chocolate cause acne?

• Apparently, yes!

  • A study had capsules of white chocolate, placebo, and pure cocoa powder and acne prone subjects ate 240 of them to act as a “binge”

    • The white chocolate group had the most increases in pimples, white/black heads

    • But cocoa still doubled the acne in 4 days.

      • Some pimple prone may get it from chocolate. Likely to decrease as we age

      • This study however was men only

        • Would there be more or less if the hormonal fluctuating women were tested?- don’t know, but we can argue about it?
          • Previously thought it was just the milk and sugar involved (plays a factor though)
          • Cutting back sugar and processed foods however, helps nearly all acne sensitive individuals due to inflammatory markers within a few months, even with severe acne

Acne and Bacteria

• Drugs are the go to for the majority still in the wEstern culture, though tides are slowly changing to less invasive and damaging modalities, but are still very rampant.

  • Antibiotics are still the first line prescribed treatment for acne, even though it’s statistically not as effective as it was a decade ago

    • Due to more acne caused by hormones and diet?
    • Bacteria have evolved to be more drug resistant
    • More people have acne due to non-bacterial causes which will shift the percentage of antibiotic effective treatment
    • Bacteria can cause acne due to having too much “bad” or good bacteria on the skin where they cause a decrease in the breakdown of sebrum, and cause the follicle to become inflamed and create acne
    • Antibiotics though may inversely cause acne and other issues down the road due to killing the gut flora, causing an imbalance, and then return to systemic inflammation

Other causes?

• Over washing your face

  • Just like how over doing hand sanitizer kills the bacteria that creates a protective barrier and can increase the risk of warts

    • This can deplete the protective skin barrier allowing bacteria and blockages of pores and increase acne
    • Skin could then try to overcompensate for depleted oils, and create more which can in turn, lead to more acne

Tea tree oil or Benyzol alcohol

• These are the 2 most commonly used self care items people try for acne, and for some decent reasons, mostly due to they are the top google findings and searches for it.

• There was a RCT comparing the 2

  • In 6 weeks with tea tree oil

    • 40% decrease in white/black heads, 47& drop in pus filled pimples and 40% drop in red and tender acne bumps

      • 3.5x more effective than placebo - Helps with the inflammation, but not bactericidal in pimples due to a biofilm protective layer- works in petri dish just fine….
        • Benzoyl peroxide- most common over the counter method, even with known side effects

    • May cause irritation, red itchy skin, peeling, dryness, or burning

    • Was about 5-15% more effective than Tea Tree oil

Barberry

• I was asked about this one specifically, so here it is

  • Looks like an elongated cranberry
  • Has berberine in high amounts

  • 43%-45% less pimples and zits in 1 month

    • 2 tablespoons of juice a day

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