patientx

Similar thing happened to me. ACV at first worked pretty well, then 2 months in it stopped working and actually made me broke out more. I stopped using it immediately. Now I'm convinced it was just placebo effects.

Did you take calcium ascorbate & magnesium ascorbate for your acne? Aren't they just vitamin C?

In your 1st post you said you hadn't seen any hair regrowth yet because it took time. Do you have any regrowth by now?

I'd stay away from biotin. It made my skin oilier and gave me more acne.

8g of B5? That's a lot. Why did you up it that much? I thought 1:1 ratio between B5 and cysteine was working well for you. Isn't the whole idea of adding L-cysteine to B5 is to eliminate the need to megadose on B5 and let you get away with taking lower dose (like 2g) of B5 instead?

Any particular reasons you take both l-cysteine and NAC? They are just different forms of l-cysteine.

When you said no luck for you, did you mean you've been taking B5 with L-cysteine and your hair is still falling out?

But the vast majority of the population gets plenty of linoleic acid from diets. If sebum linoleic acid really is dietary, very few people would be deficient there.

I've read a few posts that said zinc inhibit 5 alpha reductase and reduces DHT, hence it's good for acne. But then there's this study: -------- http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/01485018109009378 Effect of Zinc Administration on Plasma Testosterone, Dihydrotestosterone, and Sperm Count "T and DHT rose significantly after oral administration of zinc" ---------- So it looks like zinc actually increases DHT significantly. Does that mean zinc is something to avoid? Are

Do you know of any studies showing that? Phytoestrogens like lignans and isoflavones are known 5 alpha reductase inhibitors. How could they worsen acne? The only way I could think of is being allergic to soy or flax. But then again anything could worsen acne if you're allergic to it.

You mentioned earlier that the oiliness had come back. Is your skin still oily? If not, what did you do to stop the oiliness?

I'm male. Where did you hear that phytoestrogens are bad for male acne? I've never heard of anything like that. My dermatologists recommended flax and soy to me specifically because phytoestrogens are known to help acne.

Vinegar significantly reduces the glycemic load of the foods you eat: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16015276 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002822305012228 Lowered glycemic load in turns leads to reduced acne. In addition, vinegar also helps with your gut flora, which helps your acne too. Any grocery store will have it.

Flax lignans are strong inhibitors of 5-alpha reductase (the enzyme responsible for acne) and have been shown to reduce DHT and sebum: [Removed] I eat flaxseed meal everyday and it really helps my acne. Every time I stopped my acne worsened.

Try flaxseed meal. I eat flaxseed meal everyday and it improves my acne. Whenever I stop eating flax meal my skin gets worse. > I also ate almost no fruits, nor did I drink juices. Maybe that's why you acne got better in Germany. Stop drinking fruit juice and see if it helps. Fruit juices have a lot of sugar and has a high GI, which has been shown to cause acne. I used to drink a lot of juice everyday but then I found out about the GI-acne link so I stopped. That really improved