I didn't used to have acne. I had a bit when I was 15 but by the time I was 18 and through puberty it had vanished completely. Then I got out of highschool, started working and had plenty of money. I ate junk food every day, started drinking, doing drugs and getting very little sleep. I noticed that I was getting pimples for the first time in a long time. I spend 6 months struggling with it. I did what most fools did and put all sorts of shit on my face. Benzyol peroxide, tea tree oil, etc. And that did help. It helped treat the symptoms, but not the problem. Then I came to learn that ACNE IS THE REDUCED FUNCTION OF THE LIVER. When your liver is swamped and unable to handle the jobs you have given it it passes on some of its work to the skin. The sebaceous gland to be exact. If you have an over-active sebaceous gland and an overburdened liver you will get acne. If you don't have an over-active sebaceous gland you won't get acne, and then you're in a whole world of shit. But for us with over-active sebaceous glands, we get acne and many of us wish our livers did just keep its toxins to itself and kill us slowly. So then what's the solution? Rubbing stuff on your face? No because you still have red marks and that sucks. Using some bullshit medication like accutane to shut down the sebaceous gland? Well you could but then you would die. I know! Detoxify your liver.

I changed my diet, cut out a lot of sugar, fat (especially omega 6 fatty acids like the ones found in vegetable oil), drugs, alcohol, caffeine etc, and I got less acne but my liver was still shot from the junk and the drugs. I started taking supplements like fish oil, calcium/magnesium, zinc, selenium, vitamin e, greens powder and generally got very good nutrition. I started exercising (exercise gets your blood flowing more freely and helps you purge water-soluble toxins), and I was drinking green tea. That helped a lot too and I was getting less pimples, the ones I did get were smaller and the red spots healed more quickly. But even after 2 months of all of this effort I was still getting acne. Then my friend who I a nutritionist told me that if I had been abusing my liver that much, all of these things that I was doing wouldn't help. I was effectively preventing any further liver damage by reducing water-soluible toxins but what I really had to do was clean out the already present FAT-SOLUBLE toxins, the ones in my liver.

Then I tried fasting. When the liver doesn't have anything to process it cleans itself. So I spent about 40 hours without eating, which was a very rewarding experience (meditation while you're delirious and out-of-it is very psychedelic indeed ). But the best part was that in the days that followed I didn't get any pimples and the marks that I did have healed very quickly. After a few days I started to get pimples again but the fast clearly helped. But my acne wasn't gone and it really isn't a good idea to fast too frequently. So I decided to be done with my acne for good.

I bought a herbal supplement that contains MILK THISTLE, dandelion and burdock. I used it for a few weeks and I'm cured. And much healthier and stronger for the experience. Gosh I'm glad I wasn't a retard and got prescription drugs to shut down my sebaceous gland.

So to recap:

Stress: hinders the function of the liver
Hormones: hinder the function of the liver (which is why puberty and acne are so often related)
Junk food: hinders the function of the liver (obviously!)
As do drugs.
Vitamin deficency, which most of you have, hinders the function of the liver
As does inactivity.


Good nutrition - Reduces toxins going into the liver
Exercise - Reduces toxins going into the liver (and stress, which hinders liver function)
Rubbing shit on your face - makes pimples go away after.

However...

Liver-healing herbs: clean and repair your liver.
Fasting - Cleans and repairs your liver.

If you want a permanent cure, get smart about it.

If you know shit about nutrition and health and think you at once point in time abused your liver with bad food, alcohol, and drugs, first you should start eating a healthy diet and start exercising more. If you have, great, then you should do some fasting. Once a week for 2 weeks should do. Then get a liver-cleansing herbal supplement, use it for a few weeks, but only a few weeks as you don't want your liver to think that it doesn't have to work hard anymore. Then sustain your healthy lifestyle and occasionally throw a fast in there for good measure.

Thx for the post! Bravo, yes, acne has everything to do with liver health, as far as I have researched, which includes several books, and also insulin levels. I find it odd that I do not see many posts about the liver and its relation to acne on this board. You may also want to try liver flushing, I have done my first one and it helped with my acne and I am planning on doing more, along with supplements to rebuild the liver, like the one you mentioned. I think people are generally ignorant about how much of a role the liver plays in human health, it is the single most important organ. Luckily, it is also the only part of the body which has the ability to regenerate itself. If anyone else has had experience with liver flushing / supplementation such as milk thistle please leave a comment, I'd love to hear how it affected your skin.

P.S. could you watch the language next time

Okay I understand where your coming from with the whole liver thing.

But how on earth is a reduced Sebacious gland going to cause me death???

cmon dude.

Your overburdened liver uses the sebaceous gland to rid your body of toxins. When it no longer has that option the toxins remain in your liver and it gets swamped and eventually fails. If you're on accutane you need to be doing a lot to reduce and remove toxins from your body or else your liver will become damaged. But then what's the point of accutane if your liver is clean and healthy? Your acne will be gone anyway and you won't have spent any money on accutane.

What people don't understand is that acne is a blessing. If your liver didn't have that method of purging toxins, it simply wouldn't.

I'd like to thank you for this post as well. Before my acne got bad, I do remember having a horrible diet and NEVER exercising! Since I am weight training, I don't know yet if I am going to do a fast anytime soon, but I may take a week or two off to give it a try and then just get back on it.

I've actually been reading other things about the whole liver detox making them break out a lot worse after, but maybe that's just the initial step to the detox?

I'm going to try this but I keep getting told my acne is hormonal. I guess it would still work as its all connected.

I like this post, but there's a huge gap that sort of ruins this argument. What about alcoholics and heavy drug users who have extremely unhealthy, diseased or failed livers but still have clear skin? The answer could just be that they don't get acne because they aren't genetically prone to it... But it's still something to think about. It's just different for everyone, acne is a symptom of so many different health issues.

Maybe if they had acne [ie their bodies had some form of toxin release] then their livers wouldn't fail or be as severely diseased.. because it wouldn't have been as burdened.

I am (EDIT, oops) NOT doubting your experience, in fact, I enjoyed reading it. However, I am curious on one thing. It is possible to exaggerate the term 'clear'.

If you would not mind, could you post a picture of your skin from a close distance. You don't have to include your facial features if you want privacy, but I am curious as how your skin looks.

Thanks!

What is this called?

If it's hormonal then the hormones are hindering your liver and the hormones are acting like my drugs and alcohol were. Your acne would still benefit from the use of cleansing herbs, fasting and having an active and healthy lifestyle.



I mentioned this already, but it's buried in that big mass of typing. Some, us, people have overactive sebaceous glands which enable the liver to purge toxins through the skin. But once puberty is over many peoples' glands dry up and they are unable to get acne, or use that as a form of toxin purging anymore.


This is what I used. http://well.ca/green/products/quest-milk-t...ract_10648.html There's plenty of more expensive ones, and I'm sure that for the right price you could get better ones, but I was seriously impressed by Quest's version. The important part of picking one by a reputable brand and make sure that the ingredients are certified organic.

Toxins causing acne is non sense. Why aren't other areas of skin with out sebum affected? Why don't we have other signs of a toxic liver? Why do other people have extremely poor health (to the point of near death) and still have not a single spot of acne?

Acne is caused by oil and dead skin. Where people try to insert toxins, I don't know, but it's non related.

So we won't get a pic?

Forget you skeptics, im buying this shit. My story is very similar, drank 5 times a week, mixing with opiates and benzodiazepines and killed the fuck out of my liver. Im sober now but im paying for my past.

Blood and lymph toxins are extremely related to acne problems; I am appalled by the ignorance in this post! A simple Google search for "toxins and acne" will pull up nearly half a million results on liver health. Do us all a favor by looking up some facts before denouncing a well-thought out, researched post as bogus.

I enjoyed this post and I agree 100%. I can't use salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide due to extremely sensitive skin, but my face cleared up and got improved color and tone simply by paying attention to my diet, getting enough sleep, drinking lots of water, cutting out the alcohol, and exercising.

Seriously, you DO NOT need to buy ANY kind of system to get rid of acne, unless you have extremely aggravated and advanced acne in which case you should get the opinion of your dermatologist first anyways.

I've spent thousands on countless regimens and none of them work as advertised if you continue eating unhealthy food and abusing your body in other ways.

The areas of the skin without sebum are not effected because they do not have sebum. You do have signs of a toxic liver. Such as less energy than you would have. People with poor health without acne don't have an over-active sebaceous gland. Oil and dead skin contribute to the severity of acne, but they are not the cause.

It's always hormonal. Except for when pores are clogged by something you applied topically or by environment.

This thread is only partially correct. The liver is part of the picture and the OP's explanation is only part of the liver's role in acne.

But liver health is important.

Still no response about a visual of your skin.

I don't have a camera. Why you need to see a picture is beyond me though. I'm not one of those crazy people who constantly takes before and after pictures. That's really more for the people slathering their faces with goop. If I had a camera right now what would that prove? That my skin is completely clear?

So you are telling me, a person who has ate a relatively healthy diet and been active my entire life, that I have acne because of a toxic liver? I don't have very much oil on my skin at all by the way. Yet my friends who barely get any acne at all do drugs, alcohol, eat McDonalds and candy all day long? They sit and watch TV and play games all day, and they are constantly sick. It is disgusting because I know they are constipated as it takes 10-20 minutes while I wait for them to go to the bathroom. Do you have any real evidence the body uses the sebaceous glands to remove toxins?



I can also google proactive and get even more results about how it helped people clear there skin. You can find people who claimed urine or seamen cleared their skin. You can find almost anything linked to acne. Bacteria+Dead Skin+Sebum equals acne. Everyone agrees on that. You do not need toxins in this equation and I don't even know how you could put them in there.

Show me these facts please.