While I wait for SweetJade's response, I'll try to add a summary of the vitamins/minerals/herbs suggested. This is from notes I took while reading this entire thread (and then I read most of the pinned "cliff notes" thread in the Nutrition forum). However, this may have a male-slant to it, although I don't recall excluding something because it was supposedly helpful to females only. So it's probably a good summary for both males and females.
Vitamins/Minerals/Herbs to take:
Vitamins:
1. Vit A - 25,000 - 100,000 IU (you can get most if not all of this from beta-carotene & your body will convert as much as it needs to into retinol-type Vit A, but you have to make sure it has the right/enough enzymes to do so. Vitamins/herbs that help w/ conversion: C, E, K, Selenium, Riboflavin, Thiamin, Zinc, ALA, Olive Oil)
2. Vit C - 1000mg twice daily (Dr. GM)
3. Vit D - 3000 IU (esp if you live where the Sun is not out much or you don't get out in the Sun much...even the WallStreetJournal recently had an article (2wks ago?) about how good Vit D was)
4. Vit E - 400-3,000 IU (interestingly, my derm HATES Vit E, says people should avoid it like the plague...that was about 2yrs ago when I last saw him and I didn't inquire too much as to why, but he did also give me a list of common products that has it). I had what's called "ring around the mouth" where the area surrounding your lips is extremely chapped, he said my Burt's Bees may have caused it since it has Vit E. He gave me a shot and it went away in 3-4days. I stopped using that chapstick and it hasn't come back since. He says people can "develop" an extreme sensitivity to it but that it's bad anyway.)
The Vitamin B-Complex (take entire complex so as not to upset liver function?):
1. Thiamin (b1) - how much?
2. Riboflavin (b2) - 200-300mg /day (sounds like a lot?)
3. Zinc Sulphate (b6) - how much? OR...
...Pyridoxine (b6)? - 50mg (Dr. GM) (zinc & pyridoxine may be better topically than orally, esp for hair loss; vit b6 & b12 taken directly and w/o any other vitamins may cause acne, you have to take it in conjunction with others, especially Vit A)
4. Pantothenic Acid (b5) - 100mg (25mg 4 times/day?) (Dr. GM)
5. Niacin (b3) - how much? (some on board say up to 500mg/day? ...my multi only has 100mg of Niacin as Niacinamide, which is already 500% of recommended daily value, but from forum it seems only 1-2g or more is bad, 500mg is not that bad though should start gradually?)
Vitamins included only because they are part of complex, but not really acne-helping?:
6. Biotin - how much? (works together w/ Chromium)
7. Folic Acid - how much?
8. b12 - how much? (as cyanocobalamin?)
Other Vitamins:
1. Zinc Monomethionine - 30-100mg (is it ok if it's "as Krebs Complex, Monomethionine?, also, best not taken w/ Calcium and best taken in-btwn meals) (Dr. GM -> 50mg)
2. Selenium - 200-400mcg /day
3. Magnesium - how much?
4. Glutathione - made from cysteine (NAC), glutamic acid, & glycine. But it seems you can just eat the right veggies for this, no pill needed?
5. Vitamin K - helps with conversion of beta-carotene Vit A to retinol, but how much to take? (again probably eating the right veggies is enough intake for this as extremely high doses haven't particularly been found to be beneficial for acne (maybe not for anything?)
6. Taurine - 1500mg twice daily (though body can make this from sulfur (veggies), zinc, & vit A)
7. Chromium - how much?
8. Glucosamine?
9. MSM?
Herbs/Oils:
1. GLA - 240mg-1g (best as borage oil? though maybe only topically? Dr. GM -> pure/organic borage capsules)
2. ALA - helps with conversion of beta-carotene Vit A to retinol, but how much to take?
3. EPA - how much? (found in fish oil)
4. R-ALA (take it instead of Chromium, though Nicotinate Chrom is fine, reduces/stabilizes insulin response, must take w/ food...does that mean I can eat sugar-foods and then take this to help stabilize the insulin response?
)
5. Acidophilus w/ bifidus for colon health (Dr. GM) (but what if you're trying to be dairy-free?)
7. D-Chrio-Inositol- how much? (my multi just contains "Inositol", 50mg, is that the same thing?)
8. Green Tea (or extract?) - (you get EGCG & Caffeic Acid, but how much of each is needed?)
9. Curcumin/Tumeric - also dissolves gallstones and detoxifies liver - but what quantity?
10. Indole-3-Carbinol (I3C) - found in cruciferous veggies (but what quantity in mg?)
11. DIM (extract from I3C) - should we take this in addition to the I3C, or do we get enough when we take I3C?
12. Saw Palmetto - how much? (has Beta Sitosterol in it? or u can take pygeum or nettles, though topical saw plametto may be best)
13. Quercitin - how much? (found in apples) (my multi-vit has 30mg of this)
14. Boswellic Acid - how much?
15. Ginger - how much?
16. Krill Oil - how much? (and has this really helped anybody yet?...almost same thing as fish oil anyway)
17. Evening Primrose Oil - how much? (may also help w/ excema, although probably best when ALSO applied topically)
18. Lenoleic Acid & other EFA's for good sebum quality - where do we get this from, which food or supplement?
19. Licorice root tea, chamomile tea, & spearmint/peppermint tea - twice a week each?
20. Cinnamon - how much?
21. Garlic - how much?
Natural Estrogens (may not be good for males?):
1. N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) - how much?
2. D-Pinnitol - how much?
3. D-Chirol-Inositol - 500mg/day, found in buckwheat
Recommendation from John Beradi on muscle gain while containing insulin response, etc:
1. 6-10g of DHA & EPA from Fish Oil (isn't that a heck of a lot?)
2. 600mg of ALA OR 200-300mg of K-RALA
And avoid:
1. lectins, esp if "gluten-free" diets helped you, because lectins are really what's bad? (found in seeds?)
2. when avoiding sugary foods, aslo avoid sugary fruits (high Insulin Index)? banana, apple (but peel is ok), blackberries, mango, pears, apricot, watermelon, grapes, dried fruit (basically if it's really sweet, don't eat it)
3. avoid fructose and glucose and processed foods because most have high fructose corn syrup and all these sugars are taxing your liver anyway, perhaps preventing it from propertly disposing of toxins and hormones?
4. avoid plant foods that are very high in omega-6, is it because we already get way too much omega-6?
To do:
1. if you do eat something that has a high GI, eat it with plenty of low GI food. This almost seems as if we eat a full meal of nutritious low GI foods, then we can eat a small piece of high GI cake? (let's say if it's so small that it's only 15% of the total calories of both the meal & dessert put together?) - but then will such a small cake be worth the trouble, lol?
2. Couple of spoons of Apple Cider Vinegar b4 meal or a vinaigrette salad dressing on salad b4 meal?
3. The Cheat Pill: glucomannan, 1 tablespoon (which is about 5g?) mixed in water drank very quickly (because it almost instantly turns into a gel) b4 eating a high-carb meal or basically anything that used to break you out? Don't do this much, 3x/wk is ok, but they say it's because it prevents breakouts from such meals because it slows the insulin response from high GI foods?
4. If you need to use oil when cooking use extra virgin organic olive oil only?
That's a lot (with a lot of dosage questions and other questions also embedded in it), but don't worry, it seems that you can get a lot of it with a multi-vitamin and a few other things.
1. A good MULTI-VITAMIN can probably cover all your vitamins, although to get enough of the quantity, you may have to find one that is designed in the milligram proportions listed above and the serving size on those may be 3-6 tablets. This is different than taking 6 tablets of a regular multi-vitamin because in that you may end up getting too much of something you may not want. It might also contain Chromium so you may not have to take R-ALA? or K-RALA? And mine also contains Inositol but not sure if it's the same thing as D-Chrio-Inositol and mine also has Quercitin.
2. A good FISH OIL pill. My suggestion is to go to NordicNaturals.com (they make the best quality fish oil I have found anywhere) and find a formulation that contains (or at least is close to containing) the right amount of DHA, EPA, ALA, & EPA you need. Again, serving size may be 3-6 tablets, but at least it's still just "one other bottle" to worry about instead of 4 different bottles to worry about.
3. FOOD SUPPLEMENTS (these will cover a lot of the things listed above):
a) Drink green tea (two cups/day)
b) Put some ginger in your diet
c) Eat broccoli/spinach/carrots/kale (which will also get you your I3C & maybe your DIM).
d) Eat blueberries, apple peel (y eat whole when u get 60%+ benefits from the peel itself + rest of apple is very heavy in sugar/fructose), raspberries non-sweet cherries, kiwis & other high-quality fruits.
e) Eat sweet potatoes. Each sweet potato (or 25 baby carrots) contains 15mg of beta-carotene. Each 15mg of beta-carotene is equivalent to 25k IU of Vit A. So you can start by eating one a day and gradually increase to three a day so you get 75k IU Vit A NATURALLY (plus because of your multi-vit and other fruits/veggies, you'll get the other 25k as well for a total of 100k IU Vit A. In addition I think some meats contain the retina or retinol form of Vit A directly (w/o the need for your body to convert. So maybe even just two sweet potatoes on top of your diet & multi-vit will get you enough of the accutane-type Vit A)
The nice thing about food supplements vs pill supplements is that you don't have to worry about toxicity since you're eating it in natural form and you're eating a variety AND it makes you full so it they work great as in-btwn meal snacks or even meals by themselves!
4. Curcumin/Tumeric
5. Borage Oil capsules (for GLA, but can u get this from a good combined Omega 3/6/9 pill?)
6. Saw Palmetto
7. Evening Primrose Oil
8. Boswellic Acid (saw on some boards this is good)
9. Krill Oil (not too sure about this one, take others first...seems to have similar workings as fish oil?)
So we boiled all that down to about 8 things (and some quick dos/donts) and the great thing about it is that the first FOUR (multi-vit, fish oil, food, curcumin/tumeric) are widely used and/or have been used for centuries w/o ill effect for most, so you can consider them safe & natural. And from all the research people have done on this thread, it seems that the next three (borage oil (may combine w/ fish oil pill), saw palmetto, evening primrose oil, and boswellic acid) have proved too beneficial to avoid, so I may do those too.
Any opinions, suggestions, pointers, and also answers to the questions embedded in this post would be very helpful. And I hope this helps synthesize this thread for someone who doesn't want to or doesn't have the time to read through it all. Note, however, I have not included any of the natural estrogens since I'm a male and I think I should avoid going that far in my acne-regimen, plus I haven't researched that enough.
Good luck everyone!
Edited by nanotech, 18 December 2010 - 07:14 PM.
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