you may have to re-evaluate your ideas about what it means for something to "cause" something else.
there may be a relationship between acne and gluten, but with this information alone we cannot come to the broad conclusion that gluten and grains are bad for acne, nor bad for all people. there is something going on here, in its relationship to acne, but the relationship is not causative in nature, its a complicated problem, you will have to understand how the intestine maintains barrier function and how undigested food particles can pass through the intestinal lining and interfere with the functioning of the rest of the body and how the immune system also becomes involved. its really complex science that will take hours and hours of study. also, the intestinal bacteria are largely involved in this process as well, as they are simultaneously involved in the functioning of the immune system and gut barrier function/intestinal permeability.
people may propose the entire solution to be avoid all grains because of this relationship, that may not be a healthy solution, but lowering your intake of grains could help.
^ This. I know 2 people who work at Wageningen University (the nutrition and health department). They've researched grains for many years, specifically their impact on the human body. They've never found a relation between gluten/grains and acne, nor decreased health (unless people were gluten intolerant). On the contrary, when eating a balanced diet, with enough vegetables, some meat, some grains, some dairy, etc. (organic/raw, obviously), the grains proved to be beneficial. They found that the "damage" at cell level could actually promote the health of the GI tract in the end (forgive me for not remembering the details). They've also done research on grains, gut bacteria, and insulin resistance, as a follow-up on other preliminary studies, and guess what? Removing grains (gluten, specifically)
decreased the number of beneficial bacteria, consuming grains
improved insulin resistance. Unfortunately, those were very small studies (not funded), but it shows that things are not as simple as 1+1=2. And that it's useless to focus on single ingredients, the human body is way too complicated for that. No food source (let alone the combination of all the foods you consume) consists of one isolated ingredient. The argument that's often being used is, that you can get your nutrients from other/"better" food sources. Even though that's true, it doesn't make grains inherently unhealthy, there's much more to it. Admitted: I haven't talked to them in a year or so, so maybe there's more recent research, proving them wrong. If so: please share. The grains they've used in their research were not modified in any way (they grew them themselves). Maybe there's the major culprit: modified/processed foods and not having a balanced diet. One more thing: contrary to popular belief, they told me that humans have been eating grains for at least 100,000 years, probably even twice as long (not that this should be an argument to justify eating grains, but most people believe it's only 10,000 years).
LZOMG, good luck on your grain-free diet! I hope it'll help you, and thanks for keeping us posted!
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