Does your regimen still work for people with extremely oily skin that gushes out 24/7?

Does your regimen still work for people with extremely oily skin that gushes out 24/7?

Who knows if it works for anybody but me? Give me a research grant and I'll find out! 😀 If the theory is close enough to right, then it should, since it assumes the lynchpin of the whole acne mechanism is the superoxide anion, not anything that relies on decreased oil production to cure. Many people with very oily skin do not have acne, as this theory would predict.

In my personal experience, having a normal melatonin cycle (dead sleepy at bedtime, awake after 9 hours of sleeping like a log, waking up totally refreshed and alert) was no miracle cure for oily skin in my case (though that's a hard thing to measure reliably, even for researchers). OTOH, a normal melatonin cycle combined with enormous dose lycopene (2 cups of tomato sauce per day) clearly creates an unmistakable reduction in oil for me, within 3-4 days. So, even in just my personal case, decreasing oil production and decreasing acne are two relatively independent phenomena. I can sort of control them independently (enormous dose lycopene does provide some decrease in acne for me, but nowhere near 100%, nor is it required for eliminating lesions).

What is your sleep actually like?

I get somewhat sleepy at bedtime, but it can sometimes take me 30-60min (guessing here) to actually fall asleep. I often wake up at least once during the night to go to the bathroom, but I don't turn any lights on (it isn't pitch black in the house at night so I can still find my way around). Sometimes I just wake up at night because my face feels irritated, it's an itchy feeling and it can be hard for me to fall back asleep again. I'm not using an alarm clock right now because I'm on break, but I consistently wake up between 9-11am. I would say I feel moderately "alert and rested," but sometimes I still feel somewhat tired when I wake up.

I've been using a sleep mask while trying this regimen out, but I'm not sure whether it's helping or hurting my sleep. With the mask on I often feel irritation/itchiness on my face where the mask touches it. It's also just not that comfortable. Last night I just slept without the mask, and there seemed to be a reduction in irritation. It gets somewhat light in my room before my usual wake up time though, so maybe I'll try putting a blanket over the windows to keep it dark.

So my quality of sleep could definitely be improved.

What supplements do you take?

The only supplement I take is whey protein powder (french vanilla flavor). As you can see on that page, it does have some vitamin B and zinc in it though. I've been taking about 1 scoop a day (2.75 scoops on days I work out).

What is your activity level like?

I'm generally sitting around for most of the day, except on days that I go to the gym. I've been going to the gym about 2-3 times a week at around 4pm. It consists of a 25min walk to the gym, an hour lifting weights, then 25min walk home. On these days I have a protein shake after the workout which consists of 1.75 scoops of protein and 1.5 scoops of dextrose, mixed in water.

Finally, what does your diet look like?

I'll try to give you a good outline of my diet:

Breakfast:

3 eggs (scrambled)

~2 cups of cereal (Honey Nut Cheerios or Frosted Mini-Wheats)

~2 cups of milk

Very little variation here. I think one day I ate Cocoa Krispies lol.

Lunch:

Usually this:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich (lots of pb, less jelly)

Some tortilla chips

Granola Bar ( http://www.naturevalley.com/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductId=9 )

Sometimes I add a banana to that. Sometimes I replace the pb&j with sandwich meat (roast beef or ham). Sometimes I just have leftover dinner for lunch. There have been a couple days where I had a cookie after lunch.

~1 hour after lunch:

1 scoop of protein with water

After Workout (If I work out):

1 protein shake

Dinner:

There's usually more variation here, but this is what it usually comes down to:

Some kind of meat (beef, chicken, pork, sausage)

Some kind of pasta (may be with the meat, eg. spaghetti)

Some vegetables (corn, green beans, mixed vegetables)

Dinner may or may not include dairy as well (ex. lasagna (cheese)). I think I also had pizza once for dinner instead of all this. I sometimes have fast food, but I haven't had any (that I can remember) while doing this regimen (except for yesterday, when I had tacos).

~2 hours before bed:

1/2 cup of plain oatmeal w/ water

a large handful of raw almonds

Dinner and my before bed meal have been eaten in dim light conditions. It gets dark at around 5pm and I eat dinner anywhere from 5:30-6:30. I also drink water with each meal, and lots of water in general. I'm outside 15-30min before eating breakfast.

Does your regimen still work for people with extremely oily skin that gushes out 24/7?

Who knows if it works for anybody but me? Give me a research grant and I'll find out! 😀 If the theory is close enough to right, then it should, since it assumes the lynchpin of the whole acne mechanism is the superoxide anion, not anything that relies on decreased oil production to cure. Many people with very oily skin do not have acne, as this theory would predict.

In my personal experience, having a normal melatonin cycle (dead sleepy at bedtime, awake after 9 hours of sleeping like a log, waking up totally refreshed and alert) was no miracle cure for oily skin in my case (though that's a hard thing to measure reliably, even for researchers). OTOH, a normal melatonin cycle combined with enormous dose lycopene (2 cups of tomato sauce per day) clearly creates an unmistakable reduction in oil for me, within 3-4 days. So, even in just my personal case, decreasing oil production and decreasing acne are two relatively independent phenomena. I can sort of control them independently (enormous dose lycopene does provide some decrease in acne for me, but nowhere near 100%, nor is it required for eliminating lesions).

 

Does the Vitamin A in tomatoes help decrease oil production?

I'm vit D deficient. Good luck catching any sun in Scandinavia..

So my quality of sleep could definitely be improved.

Obviously, this is highly imprecise, but I would guess from that description you're not getting the most optimal melatonin surge that is possible, at least.

The only supplement I take is whey protein powder (french vanilla flavor). As you can see on that page, it does have some vitamin B and zinc in it though. I've been taking about 1 scoop a day (2.75 scoops on days I work out).

There are definitely some fructans in there, though I cannot tell from the label how much exactly. I take a modest amount of whey powder, but only the completely non-flavored, non-sugared kind, and throw it into the pancake mix so i don't notice it.

I would always rather see zinc taken separately before bedtime on an empty stomach, to raise the odds it gets digested and lower the odds it interferes with anything else getting digested. I don't have to take any zinc if I'm in bright light all day; if not, though, then I take a 50mg zinc pill at night if I want to stay acne-free.

To cover other possible deficiencies relevant to acne, I would also always take a B complex pill like this one. There are a number of different brands with that exact formulation, so I suspect they all come from a single manufacturer. Multiple things in the B complex could be relevant to acne, but certainly one of them is to keep the body from burning up tryptophan to manufacture niacin (you want tryptophan to go to the brain so it can make serotonin and melatonin).

Finally, unless you munch Brazil nuts every day (in which case you have to worry about overdose!) it's hard to guess whether you get enough selenium in your diet or not. In any case, few doctors would get upset at the idea of taking 200mcg per day (make sure you're not already taking a multivitamin that has that much in it).

What is your activity level like?

That's more exercise than most people. If you can afford the pills, you might also want to swallow some alpha lipoic acid pills. I speculate they can help elevate superoxide dismutase levels (one of the key anti-acne actions of melatonin), and may work better when there's exercise going on.

Finally, what does your diet look like?

Have you ever experimented to prove to yourself whether dairy affects your acne or not? I'm agnostic on what the actual mechanism might be. If it is the sugar (lactose) in the milk that worsens acne, then it shouldn't really be any different than other sugars (e.g., bad stuff when living in dim light, tolerable when living in outdoor light). If it is a more exotic mechanism, such as beta cellulin, then dairy would just be a special case that has its own unique way of causing acne.

Just comparing your details to my experience, I would say that if I were doing what you're doing, I would expect to have to take the supplements (including the bedtime zinc) to stay clear. For example, during the holiday season, I was not sitting at my "light desk" for anywhere close to 10 hours per day, so I had to start taking zinc again (I always take the B/selenium/ALA twice a day with meals anyway, unless I'm doing some experiment).

Does the Vitamin A in tomatoes help decrease oil production?

I doubt it (and certainly large-dose Vitamin A didn't make my skin less oily when I tried it). I assume it is the lycopene in the cooked tomatoes via complex mechanisms.

How high did you go with your Vitamin A dose and how long did you maintain it?

How high did you go with your Vitamin A dose and how long did you maintain it?

That was a long time ago, but I believe I used double the NIH upper limit (10,000IU*2/day) of retinol for a month. These days, I wouldn't have even run that experiment for 2 weeks. Because I can start and stop new lesions at will within about 48 hours, I find it hard to give any credence to "treatments" that claim to require months or even just weeks to produce an effect. Of course, there's always the exception. Vitamin D has well-documented slow pharmokinetics; you really do have to wait 3 months to see what the serum level has settled at after you switch to a new dose, if it's a big change.

Have you ever considered taking isotretinoin?

Have you ever considered taking isotretinoin?

On that note,

databased what medications have you used to treat your acne in your past and how did it go?

(Im assuming you have)

just curious

I've been trying to follow this regimen, but one of the hard parts is avoiding artificial light late in the evening. Call me a nerd, but I've discovered that listening to books on tape (or CD) in the dark before going to bed solves that problem...

Also, I got some 100 watt equivalent compact fluorescent bulbs that are supposed to have a daylight spectrum, and put them in a tree lamp next to my desk. These light bulbs ARE bright - obviously not as effective as what Databased has got, but hopefully does something.

Have you ever experimented to prove to yourself whether dairy affects your acne or not?

No, I haven't. I personally wouldn't want to go without it, but it's something I'll try if nothing else works.

Just comparing your details to my experience, I would say that if I were doing what you're doing, I would expect to have to take the supplements (including the bedtime zinc) to stay clear.

That's unfortunate. I don't like the idea of taking even moderately large amounts of zinc to stay clear because of the negative health effects that may have.

I wish I could just get the 12 hours of being outside, but that's simply impossible at this time of year (I wouldn't even be getting 10 hours if I got up at sunrise and stayed outside until sunset XD), and my lifestyle just isn't conducive to it. Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse when I'm back at college instead of on break, because at the very least I'll be spending a few hours each day in class. It's funny how my situation is consistent with your theory though 😀

I think I'll hold off on any further testing until the hours of daylight are more favorable and I have more time again (which will probably be summer break). In the meantime, I think I'll give Dan's regimen another try. It actually worked for me before, but just made my face too red and irritated. Your regimen is demanding though! It makes Dan's regimen look easy by comparison 🙂

Have you ever considered taking isotretinoin?

On that note, databased what medications have you used to treat your acne in your past and how did it go? (Im assuming you have) just curious

Nope, no drugs. Tried various OTC things of course, more than I can remember (BP, tea tree oil, other nasty things). After some years, I concluded: "these things are making me spend lots of time poking and irritating my skin, which already hurts quite enough, thank you." Combined with the fact that, like most people, I could watch the symptoms fluctuate wildly according to factors I couldn't figure out (but now believe I have), and I gave up on all that stuff a long time ago.

After carefully preserving my liver for years by not drinking, I decided I wasn't going to risk it on Accutane (not that that might not be the right decision for other people).

Your regimen is demanding though!

Unfortunately true. On the plus side, it neatly explains why the Trobriand Islanders have zero acne, and most people in civilized society have at least some acne. The "demanding" part of the regimen is simply the only way the Islanders know how to live.

If money is no object, you might want to try the Big Bag of Pills approach. I've been running this experiment for about a week. Too soon to get excited, but I will say I am cautiously optimistic that it is possible to elevate ZSOD levels enough to treat acne by just slamming down enough of the right pills (in lieu of knowing which pills are "right", I'm of course "throwing the book at it").

I live in a climate where there are perhaps 5-6 hours of daylight during winter (and the temperature is cold and the air is dry).

I've had acne for 15 years.

Summers on the other hand have 18-19 hours of daylight.

I have horrible cystic acne during winters and mild acne with a couple of whiteheads on my face at a time during summer.

I've been completely acne free for my time on Accutane.

And twice more in my life. a) two months when I was 16 and spent this time cycling around Scotland - no makeup, a lot of exercise, exposure to sunlight and rain and sleeping according to the pattern of day and night, in a tent, so no artificial light during nighttime. I got absolutely and completely clear. And when I returned to my regular life, my acne came back.

b) 3 months in India. Hiking around in sunlight, eating everything that was there and no makeup.

First I thought it was the no makeup and did not use makeup at home either. Didn't make a difference. A healthy diet has not made a difference either. Exercise - no difference.

So my conclusion - if I had the money to hike around the world all year long, I'd be acne free all year long...

What are, in your opinion, the top 5 vitamins/minerals for acne?

Hey there databased, glad you're still doing such avid research on what looks to be an actual pathway to a cure. Here's some thoughts for you:

Going into college for my first semester, I noticed that I started getting whiteheads on my torso and limbs. I thought this was very odd and irritating as this has never happened to me before--acne showed up only on my face before. This was even with staying outside for hours for days and going to bed early (for me, that's 10:00 AM). Then, it hit me. As long as I'd been at college, I had been eating virtually no vegetables of any sort. I quickly stocked up and ate tons of vegetables (carrots, lettuce, spinach, etc.), and noticed in the next days that my skin was flaking off at a much higher turnover rate. In other words, when I woke up, more often than not, lesions are usually layered over with a thin layer of dead skin, usually the first thing that happens before my skin starts healing the lesion away.

I've found this correlation to be more consistent to keeping acne away than staying outside for elongated hours. Also keep in mind that I'm very much a night-owl and go to bed usually around 2 or 3 AM. I almost always get about 8-9 hours of sleep. I find it odd this correlation with vegetables, as merely taking Vitamin A supplements never produces the same effect (often, I've broken out worse when cutting out veggies and taking Vit. A). Zinc produces a similar non-effect, as does Fish Oil. This then leaves, by your hypothesis, SOD to be remaining in the chemical reaction to rid my acne.

The question boils down to this: could one theoretically just take Zinc and SOD supplements and hope to rid the disease? I can't possibly hope to change around my time in daylight. Most if not all of my activities and hobbies are done indoor and, as I love the nighttime, I don't expect to have a "regular" sleep cycle for any long period of my life. Since I can't hope to obtain SOD through melatonin cycles, I'm strongly considering buying SOD pills in the next couple of days.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

your post is amazing!!!I have noticed that homeless people do not have acne!!even though they drink, smoke and live in dirt!And the same is true about some fisherman and water sport fanatics that I know. I have also noticed, that after a day spent outside my face clears up, sometimes in a magical way. I always sleep in a totally dark bedroom, because light keeps me up. I always felt, that artificial light cannot be good for you. Maybe I should quit my job and join a tribe?

Any results from your SOD-raising-supplements experiment? Just to clarify: while taking them, are you maintaining your normal melatonin regimen, or are you intentionally avoiding bright light during the day, staying up later, etc.?

I need to figure out if most of the benefit comes from bright light before/during/after a meal, or if you really need 10-12 hours to get full effect.

Any updates on this part ? If only meals count, well, that would be awesome and would make this regimen much easier.

I'll might have an oppurtunity to talk with doctor who focuses on the effects of sunlight on various diseases, so if you have any question on that matter, drop me a PM and I can ask 🙂

Awesome work by the way.

What are, in your opinion, the top 5 vitamins/minerals for acne?

I'm most confident in the importance of zinc, both in my personal experience and based on published research. Zinc is required to make zinc superoxide dismutase, the most effective eliminator of the superoxide anions I suspect are the most important trigger for acne. Zinc is not plentiful in a fast food diet. Zinc levels are lower in people who are carbohydrate malabsorbers (that may mean most people who live in dim indoor light). Personally, if I'm not living in day-long bright light, I can't stay 100% clear without taking a zinc pill; that does not imply others might not have diets that are more zinc-rich than mine and be able to be clear without zinc supplementation when not living in bright light. Zinc has a long research history of producing modest improvements in acne, consistent with my theory that it's necessary but not sufficient to avoid acne. All these things make me conclude that you've got to have sufficient zinc floating around attached to the correct molecules in order to avoid acne. 30mg zinc picolinate seems unlikely to be a toxic daily dose for a healthy fully grown adult.

If you accept the primacy of zinc among supplements for acne, then it's logical to include selenium. The reason is that selenium appears to be key in allowing zinc (the ion) to trade partners from the molecule what brought it to the dance (metallothioneins), to the molecule that is a gunnin' for acne (zinc superoxide dismutase). That's a purely biochemical argument, but there is direct evidence that acne sufferers tend to be low in selenium. Again, selenium may be necessary, but is unlikely to be sufficient. Unlike zinc, the body doesn't defend well against selenium megadosing, and it's unlikely to help much over a more modest dose. 200mcg/day is a defensible dose for fully grown adults.

A vitamin B complex pill contains numerous vitamins, and more than one of them is potentially relevant to acne, and specifically the theory that acne is triggered by the over-active immune system production of superoxide anions to kill the P. acnes bacteria. A B complex like this one twice a day supplies a pretty hefty dose of all the B vitamins. I can't see much reason to go any higher. Note that this includes 100mg of niacinamide if you take it twice a day.

I can't see a lot of direct evidence for Vitamin D helping, but I have been Vitamin D replete for years, so I can't rule out the possibility that it is another necessary, but not sufficient ingredient. Vitamin D of course is implicated in many skin processes. Certainly, the acne-free Trobriand Islanders are close enough to the equator and bare-skinned enough that they are getting lots of Vitamin D. Most of us have to take a pill or use a UV lamp to achieve similar levels. Unfortunately, there is just no way to know how much any individual should take to achieve a particular serum level of Vitamin D. You have to get your serum levels tested and understand that it can take 3 months of taking Vitamin D for your serum levels to climb to their new, final value.

If you count Vitamin B as one thing, then I've only come up with four supplements I would hate to do without to avoid acne. Many other things are possible, of course. Do Omega-3's help? Maybe. I haven't seen it in my self experiments, and I suspect most people can't take a large enough dose. I further suspect the effect is an indirect one on the melatonin cycle, and that there are more effective ways to skin that cat.

Taking these four pills is a way to directly support the manufacture of zinc superoxide dismutase to prevent acne. Unfortunately, you still need superoxide dismutase molecules, and having a normal melatonin cycle is the most effective route to get that. Taking a melatonin pill is unlikely to help (and can even hurt, if you get a big enough dose with the wrong timing). Of the many, many things I have tried (tryptophan pills, melatonin pills, etc.), nothing even comes close to living in bright outdoor light all day followed by regular, long, hard sleep in total darkness. If I could find a way to put that in a pill, I would be off the patent office the very next day. 😀

The question boils down to this: could one theoretically just take Zinc and SOD supplements and hope to rid the disease?

Sounds good in theory. I have not found it to be true in practice. GliSODin claims to be able to elevate serum levels of superoxide dismutase. I haven't had any notable success with it. Maybe very large doses are required, maybe elevating serum levels is not the same as getting SOD to the right keratinocytes at the right time, who knows. However, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that by directly stimulating cells to increase SOD production, melatonin is one or more orders of magnitude more effective at producing relevant effects than trying to ingest GliSODin. It's hard to list all the ways melatonin is potentially relevant to acne: it may act as an anti-androgen, it can slow cell division, it can act directly as an anti-oxidant, it instructs cells to crank out more of at least two kinds of anti-oxidant proteins, even some of the downstream metabolites of melatonin can act as anti-oxidants.

I can't possibly hope to change around my time in daylight. Most if not all of my activities and hobbies are done indoor and, as I love the nighttime, I don't expect to have a "regular" sleep cycle for any long period of my life.

Hate to say it, but I think you're just out of luck. Let's face it, working night shifts has been declared carcinogenic; it's kind of a vicious garbling of the key environmental signals our bodies evolved to rely on, so acne may be the least of your long-term worries, unfortunately.

Any results from your SOD-raising-supplements experiment? Just to clarify: while taking them, are you maintaining your normal melatonin regimen, or are you intentionally avoiding bright light during the day, staying up later, etc.?

Unfortunately, that experiment is kinda botched. I started at the holiday season when it got harder both to schedule bright light exposure and to remember to take this giant wad of pills twice per day and to go to bed at a regular time. Too many things changing and I need to start over (though my initial impression was they let me get away with fewer hours of bright light exposure).

I also spent some time studying caffeine because it's interesting how variable its effects can be on acne. After realizing that caffeine can actually slow the breakdown of melatonin, I began to wonder if early morning caffeine is anti-acne (by keeping melatonin levels higher longer) and evening caffeine is pro-acne (by impairing the nightly melatonin surge). So I started having a morning cup of green tea with stevia, which further complicates things.

Now that the holidays are over, it should be able to buckle down and at least attempt to test on thing.

I always felt, that artificial light cannot be good for you. Maybe I should quit my job and join a tribe? 🙂

Or just get brighter artificial lights. 😀 There's nothing magical about sunlight; all light comes from the same fundamental process of electrons falling down to lower energy levels, whether the atom is in the sun or in that GE bulb in the ceiling. If anyone could specify precisely what aspect of sunlight was best for health, we could pretty much make an artificial light to produce that. In both theory and my personal experience, the aspects most relevant to acne are just having the light be bright enough, in the eyes for enough hours, and favoring the blue part of the spectrum.

If your job has you sitting a desk for hours at time, you might be able to get some benefit by just bringing in your own bright lighting. Not as exciting as joining a tribe, but... 😀

Interesting about the caffeine slowing down the breakdown of melatonin. If you have the paper link handy, could you post it?

Regarding selenium, according to www.nutritiondata.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3091/2, one brazil nut has 95.9 mcg. Any reason NOT to eat one or two a day, instead of popping a pill?

I have to say that I've been having great success with this regimen. While I do still have 1-3 small whiteheads per week, I am no longer getting the large cysts that brought me to this site in the first place. Almost better than clearing up my acne, my sleep schedule has been wonderful: I've been waking up naturally before 8:00 am and not feeling groggy like I used to. All I've done is stopped drinking caffeine in the afternoon, stopped wearing sunglasses when I go for walks during the day (I wear contacts which block UV rays; if I didn't wear them or glasses, I'd be wary of the no-sunglasses-thing), placed a tree lamp with 3 compact fluorescent "daylight" bulbs next to my desk, and spend 30 minutes or so before bed listening to music or a book on tape, instead of watching TV or being on the computer. Oh, and I stopped eating fruit at night as a dessert (which I used to do on a massive scale). Honestly, not very hard things to do. Except for the fruit thing.

I'm even planning on gradually phasing out BP (once a day) from my routine.

I should point out, however, that owing to my geography, I am currently enjoying ample sunlight, and that owing to the economy, I can take long walks or sit on the beach and enjoy it. But if I spent 8 hours in an office, or lived at the north pole, I'd just get a few more daylight bulbs.

Lastly, I want to mention one thing about acne, eyes, and sunlight. There are sebacious glands on our eyelids that can get blocked - like acne, and maybe for similar reasons - and cause dry eyes. Dry eyes can make one sensitive to bright light. I definitely had/have that problem (according to an ophthalmologist and my own experience), and so I avoided bright light. However, since cleaning/massaging/wiping my eyelids every time I wash my face (with the same goal of wiping away excess or blocked sebum in order to allow it to flow freely into my tears, where it slows down evaporation), I've noticed a major reduction in light sensitivity. I'm amazed that I can be outside on a sunny day without sunglasses. So if anyone here has dry eyes, probably due to one of the same reasons they have acne, simply treat your eyelids like any other part of your face when you clean it and I wager you'll see a difference. Then you can more comfortably work on suppressing daytime melatonin through bright light.