Acne, Hypoglycemia, Adrenalin

[jyb]

Some random observations that I find interesting...

Hypoglycemia: I noticed that hypoglycemia or adrenalin surge can show up in at least two different ways. If I go too long without eating, I get lightheaded and it becomes difficult to think properly. If I drink excess coffee, I get a racing mind and feel uncomfortable. I believe both are caused by hypoglycemia, although I'm not sure if adrenalin surge also occurs in the lightheaded situation. I think the lightheaded situation is easier to take care of, as just eating will fix the problem, whereas the racing mind situation might not go away immediately.

Acne: I could be wrong, but it seems like members of this forum experience acne problems a lot more than the average person. Around me, I hardly know anyone of my age (late twenties) who still has acne, yet many have some kind of metabolism related problem like weight, mood, disease... So I think acne points to something more specific than just low thyroid function, else more would have it. In my case, I know a large part is digestion related. For example, non-hydrolyzed gelatin and possibly other protein sources like cheese can sometimes cause large/deep acne near the base of my nose (but may go away without erupting nor leaving any traces), as opposed to small pimples around the cheeks which are more retinol/zinc/etc deficiency related.

 

[aguilaroja]

Some random observations that I find interesting...

Hypoglycemia: I noticed that hypoglycemia or adrenalin surge can show up in at least two different ways. If I go too long without eating... If I drink excess coffee....

Acne: it seems like members... experience acne problems a lot more than...average person.
...I think acne points to something more specific than just low thyroid function
,,, a large part is digestion related....

I am giving my casual, more subjective and speculative impressions (even for me) here:

About hypoglycemia between meals:

I think the low carb-ish wave has a useful idea that having a mix of protein and fat with sugar ("carbs", but for Peat-ers, non-starch non-grain carbs) with give a steadier fuel supply. Increasing total daily protein is one step. Dr. Peat seems to give less emphasis of including saturated fact (coconut oil) lately compared to years ago. But especially early in Peat-ing, I have seen saturated fat intake steady things (i.e. reduce cranky hypoglycemia) as the restorative functions perk up.

About hypoglycemia-like states after coffee:

Coffee seems to boost metabolism and use fuel/nutrients more rapidly. Coffee with some fat (cream/milk) or a meal, or, secondarily with sugar, reduced coffee ups & downs early in Peati-ing

About adult acne:

It may be true that low metabolism/hypothyroid folks have more frequent acne. They also have lots of difficulties more frequently. On close questioning IME hypothyroid people commonly have some otherwise "mysterious" skin issue: very dry/very oily/unexplained rash/acne/tendency toward skin infection/etc. Other the skin issue is regarded as something the person "has to live with".

Low thyroid issues manifest in many different ways, partly due to what compensations happen. (Medical checklists of "non-specific" thyroid symptoms can go on for dozens of items.) Why the skin with low thyroid issues? It's a large organ. It has metabolic activity over a large surface area. It's sensitive. It's fuel dependent. It's circulation dependent. It has protective immune-ish function that requires fairly steady fuel supply.

Why acne? A few thoughts occur to me. The thought about impaired digestion seems sound. Apart from general endotoxin burdens, sluggish liver function is probably a factor. Reduced liver clearance in low metabolism includes slower processing of all the sex steroids (The "hormonal" influence on acne that is often cited.)

I found that serotonin lowering measures (niacinamide/ BCAA/tianeptine) each lowered skin irritation/acne/rash that arose during stressful events. The general lag in immunity with poor thyroid function is probably also a factor for some. I'd guess that the reduced thermoregulation of impaired thyroid function itself leads to semi-stagnant local skin supply and clearance.

 

[jyb]

Why does acne form on specific areas depending on specific circumstances? I read that acne can be seen as a way to detoxify through the skin, but it doesn't really make sense, it doesn't explain why it occurs at a specific area, and also deep/cystic acne doesn't necessarily "erupt" (it may heal and disappear quickly if lucky) so the skin doesn't act as an exit path for toxin.

 

[Mittir]

Dr. Peat seems to give less emphasis of including saturated fact (coconut oil) lately compared to years ago. But especially early in Peat-ing, I have seen saturated fat intake steady things (i.e. reduce cranky hypoglycemia) as the restorative functions perk up.

I think he has become more cautious about recommending fat as
many of his listeners misunderstood that he recommends any amount of
calories even when one is planning to lose weight. He mentioned that if
weight loss is a goal then one should replace most of the fat intake by sugar,
as sugar increases metabolism more than fat. It will be easier to lose weight
on a high carb/sugar diet. I think low glycogen storage is a problem in up
and down of blood sugar. Niacinamide has helped me a lot. I have noticed
if i do not take Niacinamide for a day or two i get those sugar crash if i
do not eat every few hours.

 

[Ulla]

He mentioned that if
weight loss is a goal then one should replace most of the fat intake by sugar,
as sugar increases metabolism more than fat.

It will be easier to lose weight
on a high carb/sugar diet.

I think low glycogen storage is a problem in up
and down of blood sugar.

Niacinamide has helped me a lot. I have noticed
if i do not take Niacinamide for a day or two i get those sugar crash if i
do not eat every few hours.

How much did you take it in that time?
And when?

I noticed that when using brewers yeast as a facial mask, skin gets more clear from acne.
I also drink brewers yeast in the morning but maybe I need to double the dosage. I also feel hypoglycemia quite often I guess.
Must be sth good in B3 because yeast helps me.

 

[sassabrassa]

About acne:

Personally my acne is definitely hormonal as I've been following my cycle and there's a correlation between peak estrogen and my acne. I think it's a liver issue as previous user said, since from what I've understood liver detoxifies excess estrogen. I also show other signs of sluggish liver such as orange palms of feet and dry skin, so that's why I think the liver (after years of diet abuse from my side) are my problem.

All my other problems have subsided with peating and I'm very happy about that, I just wish I knew how to fix this liver thing.

I think the liver can be a cause of acne for many who are still peating, since my gut/digestion issues subsided quite easily with peat diet but I find liver issues are harder to knock.

This is just a theory though from my own experience, it might not be applicable to others.

 

[Mittir]

How much did you take it in that time?
And when?

I noticed that when using brewers yeast as a facial mask, skin gets more clear from acne.
I also drink brewers yeast in the morning but maybe I need to double the dosage. I also feel hypoglycemia quite often I guess.
Must be sth good in B3 because yeast helps me.

I started with 50 mg once a day and slowly increased to 100 mg two to three
times a day. Brewer's Yeast has all sorts of B vitamins and other compounds
that have beneficial effect, especially for blood sugar control. RP mentioned
that his father cured his diabetes just eating large amount of
brewers yeast, he also cautioned that Yeast is estrogenic .

 

[Ulla]

@Mittir

Hey,
thanks for that info.
I just read two days ago that Yeast is estrogenic and then I stop eating it. I will continue tomorrow. Your info is very useful and I really think it helps with skin problem. Otherwise I am having problems getting enough B vitamins.
I am really afraid of estrogen

 

[marikay]

I only experience acne in the summer when my vitamin d levels are sky high from the UVB rays. All I need to do for the problem is up the vitamin a and the problem is solved.

 

[tara]

I just read two days ago that Yeast is estrogenic and then I stop eating it. I will continue tomorrow. Your info is very useful and I really think it helps with skin problem. Otherwise I am having problems getting enough B vitamins.

Peat has mentioned making a hot water extract of brewers yeast. Drink the liquid, and hopefully discard most of the estrogen with the sediment. If you are getting hypoglycemic, I imagine that it might be important to have some carbs with this.

 

[thebigpeatowski]

My observation after seriously struggling with acne for DECADES is that it's directly linked to digestion. My poor digestion/endotoxin/chronic gut irritation all posed a tremendous burden for my liver. Using lots of different anti-microbials, clearing parasites and raising vitamin A has finally given me relief. I no longer break out even before/during my period.....come to think of it, fixing the gut/liver issues has fixed blood sugar issues too.

 

[bobbybobbob]

Acne: I could be wrong, but it seems like members of this forum experience acne problems a lot more than the average person. Around me, I hardly know anyone of my age (late twenties) who still has acne, yet many have some kind of metabolism related problem like weight, mood, disease... So I think acne points to something more specific than just low thyroid function, else more would have it. In my case, I know a large part is digestion related. For example, non-hydrolyzed gelatin and possibly other protein sources like cheese can sometimes cause large/deep acne near the base of my nose (but may go away without erupting nor leaving any traces), as opposed to small pimples around the cheeks which are more retinol/zinc/etc deficiency related.

This forum is quite obviously well populated by a certain kind of neurotic person. Sanguine folks, even with health problems, would never find it.

Gut and skin are ridiculously sensitive to emotional stress. Neurotic/OCD personality type = skin and digestion problems.

 

[marikay]

This forum is quite obviously well populated by a certain kind of neurotic person. Sanguine folks, even with health problems, would never find it.

Gut and skin are ridiculously sensitive to emotional stress. Neurotic/OCD personality type = skin and digestion problems.

I have never had anywhere near the amount of acne problems vegetarians have. And my sister-in-law is OCD and does have the problems you mention above. She is not in any way a peatarian. She won't touch fat of any kind, and she abhors sugar. Get a clue.

 

[Ulla]

Peat has mentioned making a hot water extract of brewers yeast. Drink the liquid, and hopefully discard most of the estrogen with the sediment. If you are getting hypoglycemic, I imagine that it might be important to have some carbs with this.

I always drink it in the morning before breakfast. And I feel okay with lots of carbs in the morning. In the afternoon when I eat, I sometimes feel hypoglycemic but I don't drink Yeast in the other half of the day. I think it is connected.

Thanks for the advice. I usually drink everything, including sediments. Don't vitamins go away by that? Are in the liquid part?

 

[tara]

Thanks for the advice. I usually drink everything, including sediments. Don't vitamins go away by that? Are in the liquid part?

Peat quotes on brewers yeast.
Ray Peat, PhD on Brewer’s Yeast – Functional Performance Systems (FPS)
It seems he favours liver for vitamins except for diabetes.

 

[Ulla]

Thanks.
Helpful link :)
I am glad hot water wouldn't destroy vitamins.


“Zinc, as in oysters, and potassium and the B vitamins, as in brewer’s yeast, are sometimes necessary. Many people get gas from the complex carbohydrates in yeast. This can be prevented by steeping a tablespoonful in a cup of boiling water, and drinking only the yellow liquid and throwing away the sediment. Protein is lost, but the other nutrients are highly soluble.”

 

[thebigpeatowski]

This forum is quite obviously well populated by a certain kind of neurotic person. Sanguine folks, even with health problems, would never find it.

Gut and skin are ridiculously sensitive to emotional stress. Neurotic/OCD personality type = skin and digestion problems.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the gut irritation along with the ensuing excess of serotonin and endotoxin actually CAUSES this personality type? This has been my personal experience. Keeping the gut clean and digestion smooth dramatically reduces neurotic OCD tendencies along with a million other benefits.

 

[Ulla]

Somewhere else on the internet I found some great post someone left in another forum...
it goes about treating acne with taurine and adding b vitamins.
the person has some nice conclusions I think.

it is a whole story here interesting reading.

This is a long post, but please bear with me, it's worth it!

I think a lot of the factors that aggravate acne have to do with how the western diet is overloaded with fructose-heavy sugars. Table sugar is half glucose and half fructose. I noticed any time I ate anything with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in it, my skin would get worse. So I tried removing HFCS from my diet as much as I could, and saw an incredible difference! It went down significantly! But not completely. Then I noticed that being deficient in b vitamins would make me more likely to get acne along my jawline. I noticed that when I added nutritional yeast to my diet, and the jawline acne improved. So I started a general b vitamin supplement, and the jawline acne went away. But what did that have to do with sugar? So I looked it up. Sugar causes your body to lose b vitamins! But my acne wasn't 100% gone yet! For a long time I didn't know what the missing link was. Then at work a few weeks ago, a girl came by my work with Red Bull samples. I read the label, and all the sugars were fine, no fructose, no sucrose (which is made of half fructose), had some added b vitamins which was good, and some Taurine. I didn't know what Taurine was, but I took a risk. Within the next few days of drinking one red bull a day at work, my skin got amazingly clear! So I looked at the label again. The only thing in there that could be doing it was the Taurine because I was already taking a b-vitamin, and I really doubted the caffeine was helping...lol So I looked up Taurine, and found that in studies, Taurine was able to reverse fructose-induce diabetes in rats! I also found that Fructose is metabolized in the liver instead of with insulin like glucose, and HFCS heavy diets tend to overload the liver so it can't handle it all and so instead turns it into triglycerides which are highly inflammatory fats. For example, for every 1% increase in triglycerides in your diet, your risk of a heart attack goes up 150%. But knowing that fructose is handled by the liver, and that HFCS overloads the liver suddenly made me remember the liver flush threads and how they seemed to really help a lot of people! Suddenly the pieces were all fitting together! In the western diet, our main source of sweeteners are either table sugar (half fructose, have glucose), HFCS (80% fructose, 20% glucose), or Honey, which has the same sugar profile as HFCS (that was a big surprise for me!) No wonder our livers are overwhelmed, we're riddled with inflammation, and it tends to mostly happen with western diets! It's all about fructose! Fruit ordinarily has only small amounts of fructose compared to the levels of fructose our processed food diet provides. But with our overwhelmed livers, we can't even eat natural fruit anymore without breaking out!

Also, with more research on Taurine, I found that it is a sulfur containing amino acid. Sulfur is well known for it's anti-bacterial and healing properties, so that made even more sense. In addition to that, it is a key component of bile acids that helps your system digest lipids properly. A few months ago, I had been taking an enzyme by Enzymedica for digesting lipids (fats), and it really helped, but was way too expensive to keep up, so I had to stop taking it. But Taurine does the same thing! I got a bottle of 60 caps for like $13, so it's waaaay cheaper!

So here's what I'm doing that seems to be so far completely eliminating my acne:

- a low level General b-vitamin supplement (Taurine needs vitamin b-6 to work properly, and vitamin b-6 needs all the others b-vitamins to work properly. That's also why taking megadoses of single b-vitamins causes problems because it causes deficiencies in all the other b-vitamins, so make sure it has all the b vitamins in balanced amounts, but not too high levels. I actually split my b vitamin in half, and take half a capsule every day.)

- 1000mg/day supplement of Taurine

- Avoiding fructose as much as possible! Including HFCS, and sugars that contain fructose, like sucrose (cane sugar) and honey. Also HFCS is in a LOT of foods, so you'll need to become an avid label reader, but I'm sure many of you already are.

- Avoiding sweet fruits for now so my liver can recover.

- I'm also avoiding hydrogenated fats for good measure because they're inflammatory.

So there ya have it! My acne is gone, it's not expensive (it costs me about $25 for 2 months of supplements), and it's not complicated!

I'm sure if you added the liver flushes, that it would work even faster, but I just couldn't get myself to drink olive oil like that! lol But liver flushes aren't a required or necessarily recommended part of this regimen because I don't have any personal experience with them, and the regimen works fine without them.

If some people could try this and let me know if it works for them, it would be really appreciated!

Also, my daily face washing routine is just warm water and a wash cloth, nothing fancy.

Source: Fructose, Insulin, And Taurine!​

 

[DaveFoster]

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the gut irritation along with the ensuing excess of serotonin and endotoxin actually CAUSES this personality type? This has been my personal experience. Keeping the gut clean and digestion smooth dramatically reduces neurotic OCD tendencies along with a million other benefits.

It absolutely causes that personality type. Your hormones alter your biology. Your biology dictates your behavior.

 

[Giraffe]

Somewhere else on the internet I found some great post someone left in another forum...

Is this person by chance inspired by Robert Lustig?

HFCS (80% fructose, 20% glucose), or Honey, which has the same sugar profile as HFCS (that was a big surprise for me!)

Honey is approximately equal amounts fructose and glucose.

For example, for every 1% increase in triglycerides in your diet, your risk of a heart attack goes up 150%.

RP: According to Horwitz and others (the 2009 study), there have been several studies that the higher level of lipoproteins, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein, and high density, and triglycerides, where all associated with improved survival in heart failure patients.

Blood Pressure Regulation, Heart Failure and Muscle Atrophy - KMUD, 2012-07-20

I'm also avoiding hydrogenated fats for good measure because they're inflammatory.

Good to avoid margarine. It contains more than enough PUFA to be inflammatory.