How Diet Impacts Acne

We don’t know everything about diet and acne yet, but we do know that tweaking your diet WILL help control this complex pimple-forming cascade.

1. Avoid High-Carb Foods

This includes: white flour, sugary “junk” foods, and sugar-filled drinks and juices. Highly refined high-carb foods have a high glycemic index (meaning a lot of quick sugar), which is linked to acne. If you cut down on high glycemic foods, your acne should improve.

Basically, eating refined carbs causes your hormones and pores to go crazy, which causes you to get zits. Stop the cascade by passing on the sugary foods and refined carbs, a.k.a. junk foods.

2. Limit Dairy Products

Switch from fatty dairy products (e.g. ice cream and cheese) to a moderate amount of whole milk dairy products. Even better is to eat these dairy products when they contain natural probiotics (e.g. yogurt) so you get the benefit of those too. 

Reasons that might explain milk’s role in acne include:

• Milk contains substances that your body converts to testosterone (that same hormone mentioned above and that affects your pores, causing oil production and acne).
• Milk stimulates your body to produce a natural chemical called insulin-like growth factor (IGF, mentioned above too). This IGF increases your body’s own natural testosterone hormones. It also increases how these hormones affect your pores, causing even more oil production and possibly more pimples and blackheads.

It’s important to know that skim milk products seem to be the worst for acne! We don’t know why. Know that all cow dairy milk products may play a role regardless of whether they’re made from whole milk, low fat milk or skim milk.

3. Eat Less Meat and Animal-Based Foods/Eat More Plant-Based Foods

Eating less meat and more plant foods help you to flip an important fatty acid ratio in your body. It’s the ratio of omega 6s to omega 3s. The traditional high animal food western diet has a high ratio of omega 6s to 3s. A plant-based diet has more 3s to 6s and that ratio helps to fight acne. 

Reasons this might impact your acne include:

•  Omega 6s fuels inflammation (like, really big pimples). You get loads of omega 6 fatty acids in meats and other animal-based foods. 
• Omega 3 fatty acids quiet inflammation. You get tons of those in things like walnuts, flax seeds, spinach, and salmon.