Diet taboos for acne breakouts

At present, there are only three dietary taboos recognized in the field of dermatology that are clearly related to acne breakouts - high GI foods, high added sugar foods, and skim/low-fat dairy products. The remaining peppers, seafood, and "fat foods" are extremely controversial, and there is absolutely no need to ban all foods.

Really don’t kill Chili to death. I once met a sophomore girl who quit spicy food to the point where she didn’t even dare to touch the spicy millet in the hot pot dipping sauce. As a result, she drank iced milk tea and brown sugar ice powder every day, and the acne still appeared. On the contrary, I grew up in Chongqing, and my skin is so smooth that I can hardly even close my mouth. What you think of as "eating spicy food to break out acne" is mostly due to the heavy oil, heavy sugar, high salt seasonings that go with spicy dishes, as well as the accompanying ice drinks. High sugar and high oil will cause blood sugar to spike in a short period of time, and insulin will jump accordingly, directly stimulating the sebaceous glands to produce oil. The excess oil will clog the pores. Once Propionibacterium acnes multiplies, acne will naturally appear. Of course, there are a very small number of people who are indeed sensitive to capsaicin. After eating it, their skin becomes red and the inflammation worsens. Then just avoid it yourself. There is no need to force everyone to quit spicy food.

The pitfalls that are easier to ignore than high GI are hidden in what many people think of as “healthy foods.” Many people drink two bottles of skimmed milk for breakfast in order to lose weight. Even after giving up oil and sugar for three months, chin pimples still appear one after another. In fact, they are stepping into the trap of dairy products. Skim milk has removed its milk fat during processing, and a large amount of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which would have been destroyed by milk fat, is retained, and the content is higher than that of whole milk. This ingredient will directly stimulate the secretion of sebaceous glands, and will also aggravate abnormal keratin metabolism, which just hits the two core trigger points of acne breakouts. Of course, there are also different academic opinions here: some evidence-based dermatologists believe that all dairy products have the risk of causing acne, and even sugar-free yogurt should be avoided. ； Some clinicians believe that as long as there is no clear acne breakout reaction after drinking it, whole milk and sugar-free yogurt can be eaten normally without excessive anxiety. The girl I treated before had acne after drinking skim milk. Later, she replaced the milk with a small cup of full-fat sugar-free yogurt every day. In less than two weeks, most of the red acne on her chin disappeared. The impact of individual differences is really much greater than a uniform list of taboos.

As for the "pox breakouts caused by seafood and hair products" that have been spread for many years, there is no unified basis. Most people are allergic to seafood. After eating it, their immunity fluctuates and causes inflammation, or they suffer from stomach upset after eating stale seafood. The body's stress response induces acne, which has nothing to do with the seafood itself. I have a colleague who is a medical cosmetologist. He has acne-prone skin for ten years. He strictly abstained from seafood for five years. Then he accidentally ate steamed seabass once, and nothing happened. Now he eats boiled shrimp twice a week, and his skin is actually more stable than before when he ate boiled vegetables every day.

Let me tell you an interesting little experience. You really don’t have to check the “red and black list of acne-causing foods” on the Internet, which makes eating feel like doing a chemistry experiment. Just take a memo on your phone and write it down every time you get an acne breakout on the second or third day after eating something. If you get acne twice in a row, just avoid it. It's more effective than any general list. After all, acne is the result of many factors such as hormones, work and rest, skin care habits, and diet. Don’t put all the blame on diet, and don’t dare to eat this or that every day to make you feel anxious. Hormone disorders caused by mood swings are much more likely to cause acne than drinking a cup of milk tea.