The High Glycemic Food-Acne Connection

A new report confirms what dermatologists like Ava Shamban, MD, have long suspected: The very same foods that contribute to development of heart disease and diabetes can also bump up your risk of having acne.

Anecdotally, I’ve always felt there was a connection between diet and acne. Now, we've finally accumulated enough solid science to confirm this.
A new report published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics reviews research on acne and food from 1960 to 2012 and confirms the link. 

According to a press release on the report, the researchers "concluded that a high glycemic index/glycemic load diet and frequent dairy consumption are the leading factors in establishing the link between diet and acne."
For generations, dermatologists, researchers, moms, and the media have gone back and forth on the issue of whether acne breakouts are caused by diet. When I was growing up, the perceived wisdom was that chocolate and French fries were the major cause of acne. Then when I was in medical school the pendulum swung the other way and word had it that teenagers were going to get acne regardless of what they ate.

Then about ten years ago, the research — and I’m talking about some impressive clinical studies coming out of Australia, Malaysia, Korea, China, and Turkey in addition to Europe and North America — started to show that there was an acne-food connection, but not for the reasons we had initially thought. It turns out that it wasn’t just the grease in these foods but rather a function of their high-glycemic carbohydrate content.

But the real villain here is the way we eat. It turns out that a dairy-rich diet of highly processed and junk foods heavy in refined carbohydrates — the very ones that have triggered our obesity, diabetes, and heart disease epidemics — tend to be very high glycemic as well. The studies show that when cultures with diets that formerly consisted only of freshly prepared foods switched to high-glycemic, processed, convenience foods and sugary soft drinks, their acne statistics exploded. Working the reverse angle was the famous Australian study in 2005, where teenage boys on a low-glycemic diet showed a significant reduction in their acne incidence and severity.

So if you’re a teenager or an acne-prone adult, where do you go from here? I’m going to suggest that you cut down on full-fat dairy and put yourself on a healthy, low-glycemic diet featuring plenty of fresh produce for at least four weeks to gauge the results. Try to keep your daily glycemic number total under 55. A good glycemic index site worth bookmarking is glycemicindex.com. There are even a couple of apps that are excellent too (Glycemic Index and Low GI Diet Tracker).

One thing I want to make clear is a semantic one. The studies are not saying that high glycemic and dairy foods cause acne per se. Rather, they are statistically likely to exacerbate a predisposition to acne that is already there (including the hormonal upheavals of adolescence, menopause, or stress). To my thinking though, the correlation between wholesome food and clear skin is enough motivation to eat healthier. After all, what have you got to lose aside from a few pimples?