How to Prevent Pimples and Reduce Acne Naturally by Eating Right
by ewilhelm
You can prevent, clear up, or eliminate acne by reducing high glycemic
load foods from your diet and keeping your insulin levels low. This may
sound difficult, but it's really just a complicated way of saying, "eat
fewer processed and refined foods and your pimples will go away."
This Instructable will share why this works and show you how to determine what foods are potentially pimple causing.
Step 1: Why should I care, won't pimples just go away once I'm 20?
Common thinking seems to be that acne is simply a hardship of
adolescence. Once you've established your independence, realized your
parents are probably good people, and stopped listening to music too
loud, they're supposed to go away. Perhaps pimples are just some sort
of physical marking to help society isolate members during their most
awkward phase of development?
Studies of various human cultures across the globe and my own experience
indicate this is simply false. I'm 10 years past being a teenager, and
will occasionally still get a pimple. More convincing perhaps, studies
of non-westernized cultures that follow a traditional diet low in
refined sugars and starches show a complete lack of acne in all age
groups. Here's once such study found
here.
Similar reports can be found in the journals of pioneers and explorers
who were among the first Europeans to contact indigenous peoples: no
pimples, no acne.
Step 2: Keep your insulin levels low
The (simplified) theory is that elevated levels of insulin cause pimples
to form. Insulin is a hormone that is released in response to eating,
and tells your cells to take in sugar from the blood (glucose) and store
it for later use. Insulin has a tremendous number of other, down-steam
effects on the body, many of which are not well understood. One of
the effects of higher-than-normal levels of insulin is an increase in
insulin-like growth factor-1, which shifts the body's endocrine balance
and promotes acne (check
here
for a paper on this in the Journal of Comparative Biochemistry and
Physiology). Insulin is commonly associated with diabetes, where the
body becomes desensitized to the hormone and progressively more and more
is required to keep blood-sugar levels in check.
Insulin
levels and blood-sugar levels are closely related (diabetics measure
their blood-sugar levels to determine if they need to inject insulin),
and blood-sugar levels are controlled directly by what you eat. Sugary
and starchy foods, like table sugar, potatoes, and bread, can raise
blood-sugar levels quickly for relatively small portions. Fruits and
vegetables act to raise blood-sugar levels more slowly and to a lesser
degree because they contain different types of sugars (typically
fructose instead of sucrose) and lower quantities of sugar for the same
portion size. Meats, fats, and other non-carbohydrate containing foods
have little influence on blood-sugar levels.
So, preventing acne is a matter of eating right to keep your insulin levels low.
Take
note that there is a fundamental difference in this approach compared
to other acne-remedies. Keeping insulin levels low addresses the root
cause of acne while most other techniques (salicylic acid to remove dead
skin cells more readily, antibiotics to kill the infecting bacteria, or
birth-control pills to regulate hormonal levels) treat only the
symptoms.
Step 3: How to choose the best foods
Here's the simplified form: Eat fresh healthy food, and avoid processed and refined garbage.
For
a more nuanced approach, you can check out the glycemic index and
glycemic load of various foods. The glycemic index is a ranking of
carbohydrates on how they effect your blood-sugar levels, i.e. how
readily your body converts the components of a certain type of food to
glucose. The glycemic load takes into account the type of carbohydrate
in addition to how much is in a standard portion of various foods. If
you're going to refer to just one measurement, go for glycemic load as
it is a better measurement of your body's actual response. The
University of Sydney has a
glycemic index and load database you can use to check out your favorite foods. Here's a sample of some foods:
Food - Glycemic load
Apple - 5.9
Banana - 10
Broccoli - 0
Brown rice - 31.5
Cola - 17
Pizza (range) - 5-28
Booklets
with this information are available, but when you're getting food it's
much easier to simply remember to eat fresh fruits, fresh vegetables,
lean meats, and seafood and to avoid basing your diet on anything that
comes in a cardboard box. I've also heard it said this way: shop only
from the edges of the supermarket -- the center isn't good for you.
Step 4: Personal experience
Your results will vary. Your body is a complicated machine, and there
are lots of inputs and effects. Some people can process lots of sugar
and starch without any effect, while others will get pimples just
thinking about candy. Exercise also plays a role, as it makes you more
insulin sensitive, which is a good thing.
My personal experience seems to fall pretty squarely into this
theory. I eat really well and have fairly clear skin. However, at
certain events like birthdays or weddings, I just can't resist
overeating refined sugar and starch, and inevitably end up with a pimple
or two. For example, my last birthday party involved a seven-layer
carrot cake, of which I ate an entire slice (the equivalent of nearly a
half a normally sized carrot cake). This resulted in a few pimples over
the next week.
Similarly, a friend would refuse to eat any pizza. He had
determined, through trial and error, that a few slices of pizza would
result in zits.
Step 5: Start with breakfast
To give this a try, start by modifying your breakfast. You're probably
already eating more refined and processed foods for breakfast than you
care to admit. Also, if you're embarrassed, breakfast has the fewest
number of people that will be asking why you've changed your diet.
Eggs (especially egg-whites) are great for breakfast:
Tomato Frittata
Orange Fried Breakfast
Fruit smoothies are another quick and easy breakfast:
Plum smoothie
Nectarine smoothie
Apple ginger smoothie
or even faster:
apples and nut butter
ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, and raisins)
left-overs from the night before...
I'm
not overly strict in my approach, and I don't think there's any need to
go to ridiculous extremes, like eliminating carbohydrates altogether. I
think the best approach is to base your diet on things you know are
good for you, and to eat processed and refined foods infrequently.