Although I always love to think that eliminating certain things from my diet and life such as sugar and dairy - I then think to myself about the billions who have significantly worse diets than I do who am flawless skin. And then there are all these holistic YouTube people who are still struggling with acne. Although I believe that yes certain foods can aggravate acne, I don't believe eliminating things like certain types of food will be the magic cure (namely because acne is fundamentally an infection in the skin)...reducing the amount of dairy food you eat may slightly reduce the oil your face produces, but it won't kill the underlying infection.
Although I always love to think that eliminating certain things from my diet and life such as sugar and dairy - I then think to myself about the billions who have significantly worse diets than I do who am flawless skin. And then there are all these holistic YouTube people who are still struggling with acne. Although I believe that yes certain foods can aggravate acne, I don't believe eliminating things like certain types of food will be the magic cure (namely because acne is fundamentally an infection in the skin)...reducing the amount of dairy food you eat may slightly reduce the oil your face produces, but it won't kill the underlying infection.
Alright try the apple fast, or try ONLY eating berries for a week. I highly doubt that you'll experience new breakouts.
alternatevista is right. you would think that people want to learn. it is diet for me. i have switched to a low glycemic diet and now my acne is gone. i really don't give a crap about the people who say that diet doesn't cause acne. i hope they continue to have acne!!! and it gets worse too. they are discouraging others from removing their acne.
oh and the person who said how do we know they don't have acne. there are many studies on ncbi about them not having acne and look up the kitavan island. no one has acne their at all.
and for the person who is too lazy to try it because they see other people eating shitty diets and they have perfect skin. well sorry man!! life isn't fair. point is god doesn't like you. he gave you acne and he gave you the genetics to be disposed to it. too bad. your oil glands are naturally large. you can get off up your butt and change your diet to decrease your acne or just keep complaining and comparing yourself to others. wah wah wah.
diet does influence acne and a western diet of high glycemic foods is known by many to be the principle cause of acne.
I have only registered to this forum to point out that member Coool is absolutely right. There is actually a documentary showing that Inuits and Eskimos ate raw seal and polar bear liver. One ounce of that contains about 100.000 IU of vitamin A in a form of retinol, and not some useless crap like beta-carotene. I can't believe that you're not adding 2 and 2 together.
Vitamin A (retinol) is the main factor in skin keratosis. Acne prone people have a leakage, sort to speak, in the liver, where liver cannot store vitamin A for long, or, at least, not longer than non acne sufferers. So, additional intake has to be made, and maintained. What vitamin A actually does is that is keeping the skin from exfoliating that much. If you're deficient, your skin will shed off up to 5 layers of skin, which combined to sebum creates a blockage. Insufficient vitamin D will get you acne, but I'll get there. I love when I hear from useless, but mostly paid off (by pharmaceutical companies) dermatologists how they have never heard of vitamin A to be related to skin, whatsoever. I tell them to go f.. themselves.
Vitamin D - of course. Skin's immune system is controlled by a pre-hormone vitamin D. Insufficient vitamin D actually makes the body to send leukocytes to attack mostly harmless skin bacteria - p. acnes (that's actually helping you by eating dead skin cells), and there you have a full blown, red, hot zit. This is actually making the acne an auto-immune disease. When you analyze that after popping it (as I did), you'll see that it's consistent of dead skin, sebum, p. acnes and leukocytes. If your body has enough of vit D, it'll not send them to frontal attack (tested on myself).
You sir, Ichance23, I see you're taking zinc, and I bet you think zinc is actually helping you. Wrong. Zinc is helping your body synthesize vitamin A, so your liver can store more of that vitamin. Low glycemic diet, please. What you're doing with that is that you're keeping a bookshelf from falling, but step aside, and see if it'll keep standing. Introduce vitamin A and eat normally, you'll see there's no difference. Also, add magnesium, it's helping your body synthesize vitamin D, but not too much, since it's interfering with calcium absorption.
Vitamin E - acts like an antioxidant and aids in vitamin A synthetization, along with zinc. So, vitamin A should be taken with vit. E, and zinc.
Why do people relate dairy to acne? They say it's somewhat worsening. That's because when digesting dairy, a special velum, or coat is formed in the small intestine, preventing the absorption of the above mentioned stuff.
Sugar - worsening acne because liver does a poor job synthetising a steroid hormone testosterone, again, vitamin A related. It's a TRICK, people, your body is tricking you, letting you believe you're insulin resistant, and you're treating yourselves like a diabetic! Wrong! An epidemic of insulin resistance? What the hell is that bullshit? Like an epidemic of four fingers on left hand...
Lemon - important because it keeps the body Ph levels normal (natural alkalinization). Does an outstanding job in strengthening the liver.
People think vitamin A (retinol form) is toxic and, therefore they are not taking it. Dead wrong. Retinol is by far the most important vitamin in human body. Yes, more important than vitamin C. Vitamin A toxicity is very rare and can only be seen in those taking the doses seven times higher than RDA for a very long period of time. Why beta-carotene cannot substitute well for the retinol? Because the conversion of beta-carotene into retinol (since beta-carotene is predecessor of retinol) is very poor - for every 10.000 IU of beta-carotene you get 600 IU of retinol, at best.
There were some smart, rich and powerful people, who knew this. They developed accutane. A dangerous form of vitamin A. It basically does jack about your problem with keratosis, liver function and immune system, and all it does is cut off the sebum production. Why the hell would you want to kill the sebum production? Because it's easier to convict people that sebum is the key to your acne. WRONG. I hear Koreans are developing surgical technique to remove the sebaceous glands for good... what the hell is that shit? I bet it will sell like crazy.
Just to say, I have quit my studies of electrical engineering, and went to pharmacy just so I can cure myself. And I did. I guinea pig myself and it paid off, pure science. Oh, and stupid, useless sh.. like holistic diet, or low glycemic diet can help your OVERALL WELL-BEING, not CURE your acne, since it's not addressing your problem. Some people have acne, because they're allergic to something, I cannot help you with that, sorry. But what I wrote now is true for many people. Be smart people, I know it's hard to quit your regimes, since you've worked so hard to be ALMOST clear, but it's like wearing a glass of water on your head all day...seriously that's how it feels, been there, done that.
Vitamin A (as retinol) 10.000 IU a day
Vitamin D3 (better than D2) 2,3 or 4 thousand IU per day, doesn't really matter
Vitamin E 200 IU per day
Zinc 30-40mg per day
Magnesium (whatever says in the label)
Lemon juice - natural alkalinization, liver strengthening, as much as you can per day
** All of these vitamins are fat soluble vitamins, so it will take few weeks to fully kick in. But, preliminary results are seen within 3 HOURS. Since they are fat soluble, vitamin A is best synthetized when taken with some fish oil or cod liver oil. Plant oils won't do jack, since retinol only resolves in animal fat.
** You may also take vitamin B complex, but it's not crucial.
** Vitamins A, E, and Zinc work together, Vitamin D3 and Magnesium work together, take those groups separately, around 1 hour apart. Try not to take too much magnesium since it interferes with calcium, in safe doses it's good.
That's it, thank you for reading.
adder548, your explanation is very convincing. But I want to know how you connect the case of women who stop their acne through spironolactone and birth control pills with your vitamin A thesis, or is the root of their acne more deeply "hormonal" (as vague as that is) and not all vitamin A-related?
Also, I want to know if you have experienced a plateau effect with your vitamin A supplementation or if you expect it to happen at all.
whatever maybe you are right. i am 98% clear now after eating a paleo diet for the past 2 months!!! w000t. i have continued to take zinc and i think that acne is caused by high levels of insulin in our body which in turn cause high levels of free androgens. i think most people good get rid of their acne if they followed a true paleo diet and never cheated. it is very hard but worth it because your acne seriously goes away. i do have a lot of vitamin A sweet potatoes i eat. i get about 30,000 a day probably from the sweet potatoes but i personally do not think that has anything to do with it. i think it is my low glycemic diet and no sugar diet. i did not see my acne truly clear until i cut all forms of sugar except for sweet potatoes and then when i cut dairy and grains. now it is awesome!
whatever maybe you are right. i am 98% clear now after eating a paleo diet for the past 2 months!!! w000t. i have continued to take zinc and i think that acne is caused by high levels of insulin in our body which in turn cause high levels of free androgens. i think most people good get rid of their acne if they followed a true paleo diet and never cheated. it is very hard but worth it because your acne seriously goes away. i do have a lot of vitamin A sweet potatoes i eat. i get about 30,000 a day probably from the sweet potatoes but i personally do not think that has anything to do with it. i think it is my low glycemic diet and no sugar diet. i did not see my acne truly clear until i cut all forms of sugar except for sweet potatoes and then when i cut dairy and grains. now it is awesome!
Was your skin oily?
whatever maybe you are right. i am 98% clear now after eating a paleo diet for the past 2 months!!! w000t. i have continued to take zinc and i think that acne is caused by high levels of insulin in our body which in turn cause high levels of free androgens. i think most people good get rid of their acne if they followed a true paleo diet and never cheated. it is very hard but worth it because your acne seriously goes away. i do have a lot of vitamin A sweet potatoes i eat. i get about 30,000 a day probably from the sweet potatoes but i personally do not think that has anything to do with it. i think it is my low glycemic diet and no sugar diet. i did not see my acne truly clear until i cut all forms of sugar except for sweet potatoes and then when i cut dairy and grains. now it is awesome!
Was your skin oily?
yes!! so oily. incredibly oily. now, it is not oily at all. it is amazing how it has changed. also, my beard and side burns do not grow fast anymore. i think it is the less amount of dht in my blood.
adder548, your explanation is very convincing. But I want to know how you connect the case of women who stop their acne through spironolactone and birth control pills with your vitamin A thesis, or is the root of their acne more deeply "hormonal" (as vague as that is) and not all vitamin A-related?
Also, I want to know if you have experienced a plateau effect with your vitamin A supplementation or if you expect it to happen at all.
I haven't experienced plateau effect with vit. A and I don't believe I ever will. I haven't found a single case of plateau effect regarding any vitamin. The only thing I might experience is vit. A build-up in the liver, but that would take years with the amount double of what I'm taking.
Now, few days ago I started developing some small zits again. Very interesting indeed. I tracked down what I have been doing/eating and came up with this: Looks like that I have stopped eating grains at the same time I started my regimen, without even noticing - I can't remember the last time I had bread or pasta. And when I ate (rice) it kicked a reaction. I believe that now I have the initial root of the problem.
What is interesting is that rice does not contain gluten (which was my first assumption), but lectin. Both lectin and gluten are the same defense mechanisms found in all plant-based food. But grain and nightshade lectins are chitin-binding lectins, a glycoprotein that acts the same way as gluten - binding itself to a N-Acetyl Glucosamine which is found in humans and animals and destroying villi in the small intestine, preventing them from absorbing vitamins and minerals. In my theory this is the main reason why is someone with acne vitamin deficient. Some type of lectin/gluten intolerance. Lectin also stimulates the synthesis of pro-inflammatory chemical messengers (cytokines - Interleukin 1, 6 and 
in immune cells. It also induces NADPH-Oxidase which triggers the release of free radicals. But more importantly, it tends to bind to leukocytes, perhaps making them zombie-like, and attacking everything, including p. acnes, and the reason why acne are auto-immune disease, it's practically pseudo-auto-immune. Small intestine cannot absorb vitamin D, making all this possible. (If you're clearing your throat without any particular reason, or have hard time remembering stuff, or learning, or experience fatigue, or have gases, lectins are most definitely the cause of all this. Unfortunately there is no test for lectines, since they operate under every available radar - closer to a machine code than gluten for instance). Insulin levels are raised because of this and, again, it's still a trick that we're insulin resistant. We are, but only with this condition added. Without it, we're perfectly fine.
So, my theory of acne mechanism is this: Small intestine is banged up by lectin/gluten (since acne sufferers don't have the necessary genes that make our immune system fight off these plant defense mechanisms - reason - our ancestors didn't eat that stuff much) => intestine cannot absorb vitamins/minerals and lectins are rupturing into our blood stream gluing our erythrocytes together (process of agglutination) => they are accessing every part of our body, including brain, liver, skin, etc. => when they enter capillaries in pore glued to leukocytes, they attack p. acnes, thus producing inflammation (leukocytes perhaps won't even get there by themselves) => since our body now cannot absorb vitamins and minerals, we're vitamin A, E, D, K and B deficient => vit. A def. producing clogged pores, vit. D cannot regulate lectine riding leukocytes, vit. E and zinc cannot perform their anti-oxidant function ===> acne
This adds perfectly to the research of how Inuits didn't have acne before. They ate only meat, as did their ancestors before them, therefore they didn't develop defense mechanisms in order to escort lectins out of the body, since they didn't eat plants. I bet that they developed acne the very moment they ate bread.
Heat and soaking destroy lectins, that's true, but sometimes it's not enough.
I am going to add colostrum supplements to my regimen (in order to improve my immune response to lectins, so my villi can heal itself) and cut off all grains, including nightshades (to prevent any additional damage in the healing process) for a month or two. If I'm right, this might be the "cure".
Regarding spironolactone and birth control pills - yes I believe there are two types of acne, one is hormonal and second is explained above (hormones do play part in second type, but not as the main cause). I might add the third one - allergy acne, but that's a no-brainer to figure out.
There are three ways that I'm thinking of that would (if existed) cure acne for good - 1) a way to alter our DNA regarding our digestive tract, improving it's function, 2) changing our digestive tract completely ( I know it sounds ridiculous) but it could (in theory) be tailor-made, or a miracle pill that's consistent of all vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, carbs, but is free of every form of damage causing parts that would replace our regular food...
That's it people there is no other way that will 100% eradicate acne for good. I have cleared myself, yes, but I cannot sustain that without supplementation and it will take years before I heal my I don't know how badly damaged small intestine and start absorbing nutrients from food and stop absorbing stupid lectins. And I sure don't wanna wait until I'm 50 to be cured. For the first two ways I have no idea where even to start... third one is much more plausable, as far as I'm involved into this. If someone can tailor-make organs, please give me a call, otherwise I'm sticking to the pill.