Refined carbohydrates and acne?
 

I heard a blurb on the radio that said a recent study showed acne was caused by eating refined carbohydrates. Has anyone seen anything about this in print? I have two teenagers who would be interested in this information if it turns out to be true.

pimples and acne
 

Can high carbs cause pimples and acne ?
I've just read this on the internet.

Having suffered for most of my life with pimples and spots - It would be interesting to hear if other low carbers have noticed changes in their complexions?

Article reads

Bread may cause pimples and acne

LONDON (Reuters) - Eating too much refined bread and cereal, rather than chocolate and greasy foods, could be the cause of teenage acne and pimples.


Loren Cordain and scientists at the Colorado State University in Fort Collins have published research showing that refined carbohydrates unleash a series of reactions in the body which increase the production of bacteria that cause acne.


"There's a lot of anecdotal evidence," Neil Mann, a nutrition researcher at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia told New Scientist magazine on Wednesday.


Mann and his colleagues are planning to test the theory and will be putting 60 teenage boys on low-carbohydrate diets for three months to see if it has an impact.


"Dermatologists will tell you they have put patients on low-carbohydrate diets and seen improvements. This will be the first controlled study," he added.


Although acne makes teenagers in developed countries miserable, it is almost unknown in some societies such as the Kitava Islanders in Papua New Guinea where processed foods are at a minimum.


According to Cordain, the Inuit people in Alaska did not suffer from pimples until the arrival of the Western diet.


"Acne may not be the only problem caused by eating large quantities of highly refined starches. Such diets have also been blamed for causing short-sightedness and contributing to adult-onset diabetes," New Scientist said.


__________________
Begin somewhere.
You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.

I had lots of acne when I was younger. Now as a adult I still get one or two pimples once a month. Low-carbing had absolutely no impact on that.

You can read a longer version (which also explains the insulin link) at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2542801.stm

Refined Food May Be Cause of Acne
 

Here's a great article for anyone with teenagers in their house. HERE

Apparently they are going to put 60 teenage boys on a low carb diet for 3 months to see if it clears up their acne. I know my kids might listen to this one. The weight thing might not be a problem at this stage in their lives, but I know they'd like to have a clear face. ;) Victoria

Improvement
 

This should be an interesting study.

I know low carbing has definately improved my skin. I used to always have a couple on my face. Now I only get one occassionally when I go "off plan" :thdown:
{usually with chocolate :mad: }.

:wave: Akiwican

I definitely have fewer pimples than I did in my previous Coke and chocolate life. Its funny, I just told my wife a couple days ago that my pimple count was definitely reduced since starting low-carb (just like my belly).

Just another benefit from low-carbing.

I've noticed a definite reduction in breakouts since LC. My skin and also my HAIR is less oily too .. which just goes to show that eating fat does not lead to greasy skin.

(just a note .. there were 2 separate threads underway about this topic; I've merged them to keep the discussion in one place)

Doreen

Low carbing has helped my skin
 

When I was a teenager ,I had acne when I got in my 20's I had fewer but I always broke out during TOM , In my 30's I still had them ,but since low carbing I've had 1 pimple in 3 months. So for me it seems to be working but it can have something to do w/ stress as well , being over weight really stressed me out , now that I'm no longer over weight I'm not stressed.

Josie

Better Skin
 

My skin got better with LC - I don't have as many pimples. I was at a dinner talking about Atkins and one guy said his wife likes it because it helps her skin. I asked my dermatologist about it because he does Atkins and he said there should be no reason for it. But then I read that article and noticed about my own skin. :thup:

Low-Carb makes even your zits lose weight :)
 

From the New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993144

Eating too much refined bread and cereal, rather than chocolate and greasy foods, may be the culprit behind the pimples that plague many a youngster.

That is the theory of a team led by Loren Cordain, an evolutionary biologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Highly processed breads and cereals are easily digested. The resulting flood of sugars makes the body produce high levels of insulin and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1).

This in turn leads to an excess of male hormones. These encourage pores in the skin to ooze large amounts of sebum, the greasy goop that acne-promoting bacteria love. IGF-1 also encourages skin cells called keratinocytes to multiply, a hallmark of acne, the team say in a paper that will appear in the December issue of Archives of Dermatology.

An Australian team will soon test the theory by putting 60 teenage boys with acne on a low-carbohydrate diet for three months to see if it makes a difference.


Anecdotal evidence

"There's lots of anecdotal evidence," says Neil Mann, the nutrition researcher at RMIT University in Melbourne who will oversee the study. "Dermatologists will tell you they have put patients on low-carbohydrate diets and seen improvements. This will be the first controlled study."

Up to 60 per cent of 12-year-olds and 95 per cent of 18-year-olds in modern societies suffer from acne, and for a few the zits persist into middle age. Yet acne is almost unknown in subsistence societies such as the Kitava islanders in Papua New Guinea and the Ache of the Amazon.

"The only foods available to these populations are minimally processed foods," Cordain points out. "They don't know refined sugars or refined grains." The Inuit people of Alaska also used to be acne-free, but pimples arrived along with a Western diet.

Easy access

This could be because modern breads are made from more finely ground flour, and cereals are manufactured using high-pressure processes that disrupt the grains' protein structures with air bubbles, in either case giving digestive enzymes easy access to the starch. The pancreas responds to speedy digestion by gushing out truckloads of insulin.

Evidence suggests a link between insulin or IGF-1 and acne. Many women with acne overproduce insulin and IGF-1. When IGF-1 was used to treat people with a condition called Laron syndrome, they experienced a spike in male hormones, followed by acne. And the insulin-blunting drug metformin has been found to curb acne in women with polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition in which too much insulin is secreted.

Acne may not be the only problem caused by eating large quantities of highly refined starches. Such diets have also been blamed for causing short-sightedness and contributing to adult onset diabetes

Liz175 re:Pimples
 

Hello all and Liz175,

I didn't notice until just a few months ago that the
pimples on my back, were all but gone! I firmly believe that the
LC lifestyle has done this for me.

As a teenager I was one of those kids with a face full of zits.
As I got older, the phase ran it's course and my face cleared up.
I used every product on the market, washed my face several times
a day, still no luck.

Back then, and until about a year ago, I had still a very noticable
amount of pimples on my back. Just in the last year, I
had not thought about it, but they were all but gone!

With the very rare cheat, I notice I get a couple / few again on my back.
I'm convinced it's a direct result of going off the LC, even a small
cheat let's them grow again.

Definately let your teenagers in on this information as I can still
remember the pain of being that age and having these hurt your
self image. Being that age is hard enough, without having the
pimples add to it. I wish I knew this information, back then.

Cheers, John

Even at 40 I was still getting acne breakouts from time to time. Now that I've been low carbing for quite a while, I've noticed that my breakouts are much less frequent but still tied to TOM. Overall, I'd have to say that my skin looks much better eating this way. My eczema breakouts have even diminished quite a bit.

At 34 I still had sort of a boy's face and, alas, some of the acne that comes with it. A couple of weeks into Atkins and all of that cleared up. Plus my hair developed a sheen to it and my skin started to kind of glow...now I'm happy at 35!

Since LC
 

I started low carbing late August, since then I've had 4 pimples on my face normally I got that in one month. And they are smaller too & I don't produce as much sebum as well.
The wrinkle cure doc N.V .Perricone even recommends low carbs for the prevention of wrinkles & inflammation as well as acne.
Isn't this great :thup:

Josie

i do agree refined carbohydrate do cause acne....

not because of research but personal experience. everytime i go for low carb i don't have any pimples, and it doesn't grow either, the time i stop doing low carb those pimples come back...

Supplements made the difference for me!
 

I've been on every conventional acne treatment known to medicine except for accutane. The best I came up with was Diane 35, but it caused terrible side-effects so when I stopped taking them the acne returned.

I never found LCing cured my acne, but it did make a noticable difference. However, exercising would just exacerbate the problem. It was like being back at square one.

I read Dr. Atkins' Vita-Nutrient solutions and he suggested using Vit A supplements as well as Pantothenic Acid. Within days I noticed a huge difference. My skin no longer oozes oil and the pores on my face have shrunk. I can't stop looking at my skin. I keep thinking it's too good to be true, but it's been one month with no break out and I've been exercising!

I can't tell you how exciting that is for me! This lifetime burden has finally been lifted.

Wanda

I haven't visited this thread since december when it started - but wow what a response. I had only just started up again (Atkins) in December and I can say that I too have noticed a difference in my skin. Strangely enough I too first noticed it on my back (which has also been mentioned a couple of times - maybe its the first place to be affected by the dietary change.)

I want them all to go now - so might try the Vit A and Pantothenic Acid recommended by Dr Atkins (thanks to WCollier for that).

Im also worried about my two little girls - the 8 year old already has a small breakout of pimples on her nose - I would be mortified if after 30 years of my suffering we haven't learnt anything about acne and pimples to pass on to our kids.

fx :wave:

Hi fcranmer:

I think I might have been negligent in not pointing out that there are some cautions to this treatment. I didn't include dosages because I think anyone taking this course of action should either read Dr. Atkin's book from cover to cover or seek out a complementary doctor. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin so it should be used with caution. There are also some guidelines he has around balancing the intake of B vitamins with pantothenic acid.

There are actually more vita-nutrients that he suggests over and above what I discussed, but since I was already taking the other supplements, it was the addition of the Vitamin A and Pantothenic Acid that made the difference for me.

Wanda

Acne is very complicated disease
 

Doctors try different things and still can't find a cure. What works for some will not work on all people. I have a client who went to dermatologist for her severe acne & it did nothing for her it may had helped a little but not much she even tried birth control pills , it didn't work either. I had her come in once a week & did minipeels along w/ acne treatments her skin looked much better. That was before I know what carbs did to the skin. Now that I know this also helps me in my line of work. The more informed you are the more people trust you. You all remember that old wives tale chocolate causes acne well it's not just a wives tale it's the truth along w/ other carbs causing acne because they they agervate the sebaceous glands causeing them to over produce sebum.

Josie

Hoping this WOE works for my skin
 

I started suffering from severe acne at 18. Up until then I was one of those people that actually made fun of people with acne. I tried everything under the sun. Was on antibiotics for 3 yrs, Retin-A, even Accutane- nothing touched it. And the side effects were horrible - I got bald patches from the Accutane, and my skin started peeling terribly. When I was 23 I had enough, and I stopped all of it. Recently I did buy the Proactiv Solution products from TV, and they are a nice skin care system. Keeping it at bay for now. I'm hoping this WOE makes it go away for good! :)

Low-carbing has defnitely given me better skin.

I had pretty bad acne as a teenager, which got better when I hit age 20 or so, but still plagued me with at least one pimple (however small) at all times... with full blown breakouts during my TOM.

Now my skin looks better than it ever has. I still have the occasional small pimple... but TOM doesnt seem to bring on the horrors anymore. My general complexion is better too... more smooth/less blotchy.

I think 3 L of water every day probably has a lot to do with it as well.

The excema I get on my hands every winter is also gone.