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.

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

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

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"
{usually with chocolate }.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

Josie