Acne dietary taboos

There are only three core dietary taboos for acne patients - high-sugar foods, dairy products (especially skimmed milk) with high IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1) content, and heavy and greasy foods with high saturated fat. The rest of the "no seafood, no beef and mutton, no spicy foods" spread online have no universal evidence-based basis, and there is no need to blindly ban all foods.

The most exaggerated case I have ever seen was a 19-year-old girl who lived on full-sugar bubble milk tea and chocolate mousse every day during the final week. Originally there were only a few sporadic openings on her forehead, but within two weeks, inflammatory papules broke out all over her face, and even her temples had hard nodules that hurt when touched. She was still aggrieved when she came, saying that she had followed the advice of her elders and had not eaten beef and mutton for half a month, but why was it getting worse? In fact, it is a trap of high sugar - when a large amount of free sugar enters the body, it will quickly increase insulin and "feed" secretion-promoting signals to the sebaceous glands in disguise. It is like adding firewood to a small boiler that is emitting oil. Grease blocks the pores, causing inflammation and natural acne breakouts. There is actually academic controversy over high sugar. The guidelines in the early years would require strict avoidance of all high GI foods, including eating less high-sugar fruits such as polished rice, white noodles, lychees and mangoes. However, the 2023 version of the Chinese Acne Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines has relaxed the requirements: Unless you clearly eat a certain food every time Acne will indeed occur, otherwise you don’t have to give up fruits completely. After all, the dietary fiber and vitamins in them are good for repairing the skin barrier. Don’t show off two or three pounds of lychees at one time. There is no need to replace all the staple food with unpalatable oatmeal and brown rice. Pair it with enough vegetables and whole grains. It is perfectly fine to eat white rice normally. I couldn't help but eat a chocolate pie when I was working on a plan to stay up late. The next day I would have red, swollen and pimples on my eyebrows. Now no matter how hungry I am, I will only nibble on a sugar-free oatmeal bar. I really remembered this after trying it once.

In addition to sweets, another blind spot that many people avoid is dairy products. Don’t think that drinking milk to supplement protein is good for your skin, especially skimmed milk for fat loss. When fat is removed, the IGF-1 content is higher than that of whole milk. This ingredient will directly promote the hyperkeratosis of sebaceous glands and block pores faster than high sugar. I have a fitness friend who drank 3 liters of skimmed milk every day in order to build muscle. He didn't have acne in the first place, but a cystic acne broke out on his jawline that felt hard to the touch. After he stopped skimming milk and replaced it with sugar-free soy milk, and combined with topical medication, it almost healed in two months. Of course, not all dairy products are untouchable. Most people will be fine if they drink unsweetened plain yogurt. After all, most of the IGF-1 has been decomposed during the fermentation process. Only a small number of people who are sensitive to the milk protein themselves will also experience acne after drinking sugar-free yogurt. This is an individual difference, so just pay more attention to it. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that you can drink pure black coffee, but your latte or cappuccino with whole milk, creamer, or syrup is an acne-prone combination of high sugar, high fat, and dairy products. Don’t blame the coffee itself if you get acne after drinking it.

There is another misunderstanding that everyone has been arguing about for several years: Will eating spicy food cause acne? To be honest, capsaicin itself really does not cause acne. If you get acne after eating butter hot pot or spicy hot pot, the cause is actually the half pot of butter and the iced cola and iced milk tea that is served with it - the combination of high oil and high sugar is the culprit. I have a patient from Chongqing who has been addicted to spicy food since she was a child and eats spicy food almost every meal. However, she rarely touches sweets and fried foods, and her skin has always been very smooth. When she came for a follow-up visit, she told me that she had eaten butter hot pot the day before and she didn’t get any acne. On the contrary, she ate cream puffs for three consecutive days on a business trip last week, which caused two big red and swollen pimples. Of course, some people do get acne when they eat spicy food. That’s because capsaicin can stimulate active skin inflammation. Don’t be stubborn in this situation. Just eat less. You don’t have to compete with others on your ability to eat spicy food.

Finally, let’s talk about the mythical taboo of “hair food”. Many people don’t dare to eat seafood, beef and mutton when they have acne. It’s really unfair. Unless you are allergic to these foods, and allergic reactions may aggravate skin inflammation, you can eat them normally. I once had a patient who followed the advice of his elders and avoided seafood, beef and mutton for half a year. His acne was not cured at all, and his complexion became sallow due to iron deficiency and anemia. Later, he started to eat more. After his nutrition kept up, his skin condition improved a lot.

To put it bluntly, the impact of diet on acne only accounts for 20%-30%. Don’t treat it as a scourge, and don’t take it completely seriously. Drinking less than one cup of full-sugar milk tea is much more cost-effective than buying an anti-acne essence worth hundreds of dollars. If you really want to avoid dietary restrictions, you should first focus on the three types of core foods mentioned above. Don’t dare to eat anything else. In the end, if you don’t get rid of acne, you will become malnourished first. That is the real loss. After all, only you know best what kind of temper your own skin is. Take a small notebook and write it down twice. If you eat something that is prone to acne, just avoid it next time. Just take a look at the "10 foods you must not touch if you have acne" on the Internet. You don't have to believe everything.