Dear Beauty Conscious Reader,
Something they told me in medical school has to be wrong. I’ve been seeing more and more acne in mature adults. Yet convention claims that the primary cause is genetic. If it were genetic, how can it change in a single generation?
One thing is for certain: It’s not just a teenage problem anymore. Nowadays about 40 % of men continue to endure acne past the age of 25. Even more surprising, 12% of all middle-aged women suffer from acne.1 If you suffer from facial blemishes as an adult, you know how troublesome it can be.
In my own practice, I have had remarkable results using diet to cure acne. But I get resistance because every dermatologist in town believes science disproves any link between diet and clear complexions. Their only solution is to see a dermatologist and get prescriptions for antibiotics, drugs, and toxic creams like Accutane.
Today, I’ll share recent evidence that diet has an undeniable link to acne. My friend and colleague, Dr. Loren Cordain, has released a remarkable program that produces fast results. It’s called The Dietary Cure for Acne.
Dr. Cordain is an expert on the diets of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes. These cultures still follow their traditional diets, which haven’t changed for centuries.
In 2002, Dr. Cordain and colleagues studied the Kitavan people who live on remote islands in Papua, New Guinea. Their findings were startling – not a single case of acne in 300 natives between the ages of 15 and 25. Later, his colleagues examined hunter-gatherers living in a remote jungle in Paraguay. After following 115 of them for two years – again, not a single case of acne!
Compare that to American teenagers: Over 80% of U.S. teens between the ages of 16 and 18 have acne.
Dr. Otto Schaefer treated the Inuit (Eskimo) people in some of the most remote villages and outposts on Earth. When he started his practice, the Inuit were still following their native diets – wild animals from hunting and fishing, along with a few wild plants gathered during the summer. He noted no acne. But as the Western diet encroached, Dr. Schaefer noted that the locals were complaining about changes in the complexions of the teenage Inuit. They were seeing acne for the first time.
So, how does the Western diet cause skin problems? As Dr. Cordain points out, over 70 percent of the energy we get in our diets comes from refined sugars, grains, vegetable oils, and diary. That’s just not natural. To diverge this far from your natural eating habits is a dangerous experiment.
Landmark Study Proves the Dietary Acne Cure
In November of 2005, Dr. Neil Mann from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia conducted a study of dietary intervention in acne patients for two years. Based on Dr. Cordain’s work using diet alone, he was able to improve or cure the acne of the majority in the study.
So, what is the diet to cure acne? A high-protein and low-glycemic intake is key. Remember, the glycemic index measures how quickly the food will spike your blood sugar. Dr. Cordain also explains how to use the concept of glycemic load. It adds a calculation taking the quantity of carbs you’ll find in a serving of a particular food into account.
To give you a better idea of how glycemic load differs, let’s look at watermelon. It has a high glycemic index, meaning it breaks down into sugars rather quickly. But its glycemic load is very low, because a typical serving has few grams of carbohydrate. (Most of its weight is water.)
So, even though watermelon has a high glycemic index, it won’t make you fat, because the total number of carbs it has will not have much impact on your total insulin release. (Keeping insulin low is one of the keys to staying lean.)
Naturally occurring low-glycemic foods cure acne. But they also prevent chronic disease. So, even if you don’t have acne, Dr. Cordain’s diet is an excellent guide for fat loss and chronic disease prevention.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
- Cordain L. The Dietary Cure for Acne. Paleo Diet Enterprises. 2006.