Studies on Acne & Diet

[irishgenes]

"In Harvard research, teens who drank three-plus glasses of milk a day, especially skim milk, reported the worst acne. Outbreaks were 44% higher in skim milk drinkers than in non-milk drinkers. Possible reason: hormones in milk. Buying organic might reduce the hazard."

Also:

"Can diet cause acne? Dermatological dogma says no. New research says yes.
White bread, doughnuts, soft drinks and other high-glycemic-index foods spike insulin and blood sugar. High insulin, says Colorado State's Loren Cordain, incites the overproduction of male hormones and the formation of zits."

(USA Weekend Magazine, July 17, 2005)

[Buster]

There can be doubt that diet directly causes acne and seborrhea in susceptible individuals.
I do not eat any dairy except low fat fermented milk, but I a thinking about stopping that too. But I only need to find a replacement, it is just a atter of finding a prcatical solution to replace the lost calories and nutrients that I get through my oat meal mix. Rice milk is not acceptable, and is also not available everywhere.

Thanks for the post.

In all, I think that diet ia one of the things that can significantly improve health, the only problem for seb derm sufferers is that every food that causes hormone fluctiations and DHT production should be discontinued, and that can be hard if one is not motivated.

[irishgenes]

When I first went to the dermatologist for acne back in the 1960's, the first thing he told me is that junk food & chocolate didn't have anything to do with acne. He thought he was being very modern to dispel "an old wive's tale". Now it seems that "everything old is new again". Of course, you've got to have the wrong kind of genetics for this to be a problem, as my clear-skinned friends ate plenty of junk food.

Right now I am taking 320 mg. standardized saw palmetto extract twice a day to prevent conversion of testosterone to DHT. That does lower the greasiness significantly, but I've still got a sebaceous cyst on my scalp about the size of a half-dollar, though just barely risen up. I am tempted to take Accutane again because the cyst has flattened out to nothing when I had my 3 courses of Accutane in the past. I'm scared to have it cut out as they said it might leave a bald spot. I want to be ready to get IPL for my rosacea if and when I find a doctor nearby who knows what he is doing, so I've been afraid to take Accutane again. I wonder if the really low doses have any effect on post-IPL healing..

[Winnie M]

Hi irishgenes Hi Mads,

Diet is not an issue among those with the good or right genetics. Some people I know eat lots of deep-fried food, hot and spicy food etc but they still have healthy skin. Diet is an issue among people with the wrong genetics, junk food or certain foods just make the skin disorder worse.

In the past I ate tons of junk food, cut it down this year. I drank soy milk instead of milk for some time, now I am cutting soy milk off since I read certain info about soy milk. But sometimes I still like to have a chocolate bar (especially black chocolate) or desserts. You know the upside down spelling of desserts is stressed :D it makes us feel good; :D veggie chips and good bakery are tempting too :D

Best wishes, Winnie

[snwbdrloco84]

Honestly, I know that diet affects my skin condition, but it is sooo hard to stay on a healthy diet for more than a week. Even during that week, I see positive results. My goal would be to give up wheat, gluten, yeast, added sugar + artificial substitues, certain meats, etc... but it seems as if I can't for any significant amount of time. Generally, I eat healthy, but I binge maybe once a week. Cheese, chocolate, or whatever, I love them. I not naive enough to say it would cure my rosacea, but it would be beneficial to my overall health.

Ray

[Brady Barrows]

I posted on this on May 13, 2005 at this url >

http://tinyurl.com/bmogy

The above url refers to an article written Februay 19, 2003 in The Detroit News at this url >

http://www.detnews.com/2003/health/0302/21/h05-88521.htm

Here is one more article on the scientific link between diet and acne >

http://www.acne-answers.org/acne/acne-diet-scientific-link.html

I have been saying since January 1999 that diet has something to do with rosacea and have accumulated over 200 in my RDUSG who agree. However, most rosaceans prefer to ignore the rosacea diet connection and continue to enjoy whatever they want to eat and drink, taking IPL, prescription drugs, and whatever pill or topical they can find that will help control the mess on their faces.

There are no known clinical studies connecting diet and rosacea. However, one day maybe that will change.

[Kelli]

I jsut don't buy that my diet suddenly affected my skin. It was my hormones. Nothing changed in my diet and nothing has ever changed with my diet.

I don't drink milk at all, other than what I might get from ice cream or from a bowl of cereal. I was allergic to it as a child and was on soy until I was old enough to get off of it. I don't eat a lot of "junk food." Might not be the most healthy of foods, but it's not like I eat bon-bons for every meal. I'm not obese. I just don't see the connection with MY particular form of rosacea.

[Winnie M]

Hi group,

I am the only one with no photo here, haha. You all looking good! Ray and Brady even don't look like rosaceans, something must be working well for you. :D

Winnie

[Brady Barrows]

Hi group,

I am the only one with no photo here, haha. You all looking good! Ray and Brady even don't look like rosaceans, something must be working well for you. :D

Winnie

You want to see my rosacea photos?

http://tinyurl.com/9plh2

[snwbdrloco84]

Hey Winnie,

I wish my face looked that good, but in reality, it is pretty bad. That small photo was taken back in February of 2005 and I edited it somewhat in adobe photoshop. The healing blush in that program lets you copy some pixels from anywhere on your face and paste them anywhere, seemlessly creating a normal texture to your face. Enlarged pores/rosacea or whatever are a thing of the past when it comes to adobe. I bet Kelly can vouch for that b/c I saw her pictures after she used it or a similar photo editing program. Thanks for the compliment though :D . It is rather addicting... I will post some pictures soon.

Ray

[Winnie M]

Hi Brady,

I took a look at your photo album. Your face have got big improvement since the fall. Zhongzhou ointment and Acarid soap fit you very well. Congratulations! That Zhongzhou is an ointment but why people call it a cream. :oops: Don't know if it can help seb derm or not?

Hey Ray,

Ah, you gave a magic touch to your face. :D I wish I could find a doc or a derm with that magical treating power :D Looking forward to seeing your photo album.

*** This is not off-topic, because one day we'll all have clear and beautiful skin- free from acne, free from SD, free from rosacea. :D

Winnie

[Winnie M]

Aug 18, 7:08 PM EDT

Health Benefits for Chocolate? Not Yet

By LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press Writer





WASHINGTON (AP) -- The truth is bittersweet: Something in cocoa beans may be good for your heart, but - sigh - that's still no reason to load up on chocolate bars or brownies.

The health potential is real. Cocoa beans have natural compounds called flavanols, and a growing pile of scientific research suggests they do good things to blood vessels.

Dolly Sullivan, 60, is a believer. She eats two or three squares of Dove dark chocolate daily and talked her mother into switching from coffee to cocoa.

"I'm a chocoholic. I can't walk by a chocolate store," said Sullivan, who lives in Warwick, R.I. "I've always enjoyed chocolate, but now I have a reason to eat it."

Customers at Neuhaus, a Belgian chocolate shop in Washington's Union Station, like thinking the dark stuff might be healthy, said manager Clementine Loeman.

"That way, they don't feel guilty," Loeman said, adding that chocolate was sometimes considered medicinal when the company began as a pharmacy 148 years ago.

Despite the enthusiasm, flavanols are missing from much of the chocolate on store shelves today. Flavanols make chocolate and cocoa taste bitter, and confectioners have spent years trying to perfect ways to remove the pungent flavor.

"Most chocolate, in fact, isn't flavanol-rich," said Norm Hollenberg, a radiology professor and flavanol expert at Harvard Medical School. "But all chocolate is rich in fat and calories. Chocolate is a delight. It can and should be part of a prudent diet. That means you limit what you take."

Flavanols are found in other foods, such as red wine, grapes, apples and green tea, although cocoa beans are a particularly rich source.

They are so tiny, they cannot be seen, even under a microscope. To find them, it takes sophisticated machinery that seems more appropriate for NASA than a chocolate company's laboratories.

Mars Inc. developed the technology to visualize flavanols on a computer screen. Says Harold Schmitz, the company's chief science officer: "Now we understand cocoa well enough to start to do new things with it."

The company is starting with CocoaVia granola bars, made with a special cocoa powder that retains most of the flavanols. The bars also have plant sterols, which have been shown to help lower cholesterol.

For now, the 80-calorie, 23-gram snack bars are sold only on the Internet. The bars have a satisfyingly rich chocolate flavor, along with a slight but distinct bitter taste.

Mars says its Dove dark chocolates - a 1.3 ounce bar is 200 calories - also contain flavanols.

Researchers are excited by the potential of flavanols to ward off vascular disease, which can cause heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, dementia and hypertension. Vascular diseases are linked to the artery's inability to make a simple but fundamental chemical called nitric oxide. Flavanols appear to reverse that problem.

"The pharmaceutical industry has spent tens, probably hundreds of millions of dollars in search of a chemical that would reverse that abnormality," Hollenberg said. "And God gave us flavanol-rich cocoa, which does that. So the excitement is real."

Hollenberg studied Central America's Kuna Indians, island dwellers near Panama who make their own locally grown, flavanol-rich cocoa.

The Kuna drink a lot of cocoa, and they don't have high blood pressure - except for those who move to the mainland and start drinking commercial cocoa that's flavanol-poor.

Testing the link between flavanols and improved blood flow, Hollenberg fed cocoa with and without flavanols to a study group in the United States and discovered that flavanols seemed to improve blood flow throughout the body.

Another researcher, nutrition professor Carl Keen at the University of California, Davis, has found that flavanols had an aspirin-like effect on blood, among other findings.

Mars contributed to Hollenberg's and Keen's research and countless other projects. The company has collaborated on more than 80 studies.

The company announced last month that its scientists have figured out how to make synthetic flavanols and that major pharmaceutical companies are interested in developing the compounds for prescription drugs.

The health possibilities have many chocolate makers playing up the amount of cocoa in their chocolates, which can also contain sugar, cocoa butter and soya lecithin, an emulsifier that helps the ingredients mix together smoothly.

Next month, Hershey's will release a new Extra Dark chocolate bar containing 60 percent cocoa - more than its 34-year-old Special Dark bar. The cocoa percentage is showing up on many chocolate bars. Neuhaus, for example, has bars with 71 percent, 73 percent and 75 percent cocoa.

"It's great news for consumers that cocoa found in many of their favorite products can contain natural antioxidants," said Hershey's spokeswoman Stephanie Moritz.

Hershey's also recently bought San Francisco-based Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker, known for its dark chocolate, particularly its Nibby Bar, which has real bits of roasted cacao beans mixed with semisweet chocolate.

Even if you find a flavanol-rich chocolate bar, eating one every day would make you gain weight faster than it would lower your blood pressure, said Abby Ershow, nutrition science officer at the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Chocolate lovers don't need a new reason to indulge, Ershow said. "They are going after the taste, which is the main thing chocolate has to offer us all," she said.

[irishgenes]

Kelli, the study was about acne, not rosacea, and they said diet affects the hormones. Who knows what they will say tomorrow, though. They are constantly shifting their recommendations with each new study. Hormones definitely are the major factor in acne, along with heredity. I don't want to give up dairy, though. I just don't have the moral fortitude or whatever to maintain a diet free from all my favorite foods.

And Winnie, you would have to post that article on chocolate! Every time I read about the health benefits of dark chocolate, I feel compelled to eat an ounce, or two, or three....but wait a minute! It says that the flavanols in chocolate help the arteries make nitric oxide! That is a no-no for us rosaceans, isn't it? We make too much, so I guess chocolate is bad for us. I wonder if the fact that we make too much nitric oxide means we are less likely to suffer stroke and heart attacks? That would be the only good thing I can think of that comes from having rosacea. There can't be anything good, so my reasoning must be wrong here. I don't pretend to understand nitric oxide very well.

[Brady Barrows]

Hi Brady,

I took a look at your photo album. Your face have got big improvement since the fall. Zhongzhou ointment and Acarid soap fit you very well. Congratulations! That Zhongzhou is an ointment but why people call it a cream. :oops: Don't know if it can help seb derm or not?
:D Winnie

Even though it is labeled the Zhongzhou Medical Ointment, it looks like a white cream, hence most users simply call it the Z creme.

I have no reports that the Z cream helps SD. There are many reporting some success using the Z cream for rosacea in my two yahoo groups.

[claudia]

"In Harvard research, teens who drank three-plus glasses of milk a day, especially skim milk, reported the worst acne. Outbreaks were 44% higher in skim milk drinkers than in non-milk drinkers. Possible reason: hormones in milk. Buying organic might reduce the hazard."

I read somewhere that it's the iodine in milk that's the culprit...possibly incites androgen production like high-glycemic foods. All dairy products have iodine and cheese and yogurt have more concentrated amounts...interesting cause often read that yogurt is a big trigger for many.