Acne

[EIRE24]

I feel you buddy because I have had similar issues with acne on my back and shoulders. I have since eliminated my acne by probaly at least 90% and climbing... it is hardly noticeable anymore... I attribute this to a number of things:

1. Try completely cutting out milk- I found this was likely the major cause of my acne. Replace your milk consumption with a low/moderate fat cheese like low fat mozzarella.

2. Sun Tan. Direct sun exposure (tanning) completely reduces the inflammation and acne. I don't know if it helps the underlying problem or if its more just covering it up but it helps massively. It also more or less eliminates acne scarring.

3. Get better sleep. What are your sleep habits like? I've found stress makes my acne worse and makes my skin more oily. I would recommend shutting off all electronics past a certain point before bed... (say 10pm) then have a hot shower, snack, read a boring book in bed until you start nodding off.

4. Wear clean soft cotton shirts at all times to reduce acne on your back. Change your pillow case and sheets often if you don't already.

5. Stay Warm- High metabolism, hot showers, warm clothes, wool socks, lots of blankets in bed etc...

6. Strangely enough I find psychedelics reduce my acne for a few days probaly through decreasing serotonin levels. I particularly like sub visual doses of LSD or AL LAD if you have access to it. (Not necessary but something to note)

Also have you switched to a new shampoo or soap that could be causing skin irritation? Something to think of.

Thanks for the detailed advice, I really appreciate it.

1. I don't drink milk or consume any dairy anymore. My acne did reduce when I cut it out.

2. In my experience I would agree 100% with this. When I was in Thailand in the summer my acne was non existent. I drank a lot of vodka and still it was just completely gone. I've thought about going on the tanning beds to see if I can get the same results, what would you think?

3. My sleep is good. I get a good 9-10 hours nearly every night apart from the nights I might go to a party as I'm young but that's once a week maximum.

4. I don't get any acne on my back at all, the only place I get it is on my face. I would love to get it in my back rather than my face as people can't see my back. My girlfriend has great skin on her face but her back gets lots of pimples. I find it strange the way this happens.

5. I tend to avoid very hot showers due to the drying affect they have on my face. If I wash my face its once a day with Luke warm water and no soap. If I washed it with warm water it gets extremely dry and flaky and becomes irritated.

6. I find that when I drink a lot of alcohol my face clears up a touch. I don't drink beer just vodka with coke or red bull. I've taken some recreational drugs also a couple of months ago and afterwards I noticed a lot of blackheads vanished and my acne cleared for a good week and a half.

No new shampoo or soap as I actually rarely use any.

Thanks again and hope to get more advice from yourself and other extremely helpful people

 

[Stilgar]

Have you tried vitamin E?

 

[EIRE24]

Have you tried vitamin E?

Yes, I was taking a vitamin E supp for a while and noticed no difference. May try it again and see if it helps but I'm not sure it's a vitamin deficiency or something that a vitamin will sort. I could be wrong though and I'm open to ideas so I will give it a go again.

Thanks a million.

 

[tobieagle]

1. Try completely cutting out milk- I found this was likely the major cause of my acne. Replace your milk consumption with a low/moderate fat cheese like low fat mozzarella.

2. Sun Tan. Direct sun exposure (tanning) completely reduces the inflammation and acne. I don't know if it helps the underlying problem or if its more just covering it up but it helps massively. It also more or less eliminates acne scarring.

3. Get better sleep. What are your sleep habits like? I've found stress makes my acne worse and makes my skin more oily. I would recommend shutting off all electronics past a certain point before bed... (say 10pm) then have a hot shower, snack, read a boring book in bed until you start nodding off.

4. Wear clean soft cotton shirts at all times to reduce acne on your back. Change your pillow case and sheets often if you don't already.

5. Stay Warm- High metabolism, hot showers, warm clothes, wool socks, lots of blankets in bed etc...

6. Strangely enough I find psychedelics reduce my acne for a few days probaly through decreasing serotonin levels. I particularly like sub visual doses of LSD or AL LAD if you have access to it. (Not necessary but something to note)

Solid advice

 

[Dopamine]

Thanks for the detailed advice, I really appreciate it.

1. I don't drink milk or consume any dairy anymore. My acne did reduce when I cut it out.

2. In my experience I would agree 100% with this. When I was in Thailand in the summer my acne was non existent. I drank a lot of vodka and still it was just completely gone. I've thought about going on the tanning beds to see if I can get the same results, what would you think?

3. My sleep is good. I get a good 9-10 hours nearly every night apart from the nights I might go to a party as I'm young but that's once a week maximum.

4. I don't get any acne on my back at all, the only place I get it is on my face. I would love to get it in my back rather than my face as people can't see my back. My girlfriend has great skin on her face but her back gets lots of pimples. I find it strange the way this happens.

5. I tend to avoid very hot showers due to the drying affect they have on my face. If I wash my face its once a day with Luke warm water and no soap. If I washed it with warm water it gets extremely dry and flaky and becomes irritated.

6. I find that when I drink a lot of alcohol my face clears up a touch. I don't drink beer just vodka with coke or red bull. I've taken some recreational drugs also a couple of months ago and afterwards I noticed a lot of blackheads vanished and my acne cleared for a good week and a half.

No new shampoo or soap as I actually rarely use any.

Thanks again and hope to get more advice from yourself and other extremely helpful people

You could try a tanning bed just to see if it works and to see how long it works for (Might only work for a few days). Natural sunlight is the better option in the long run if you have access to it. Try changing your pillow case frequently if you don't already- you can also just use a clean cotton t shirt around your pillowcase. I would also suggest you try topical niacinamide. It is Peat approved and actually works quite well. Worth looking into anyway. It also won't dry your skin out like peroxide if the solution is free of alcohol.

Topical nicotinamide compared with clindamycin gel in the treatment of inflammatory acne vulgaris. - PubMed - NCBI
This study showed topical niacinamide was more effective than a topical antimicrobial solution. 82% of the patients showed improvement with a 60% reduction in lesions and 52% reduction in acne severity.

 

[EIRE24]

You could try a tanning bed just to see if it works and to see how long it works for (Might only work for a few days). Natural sunlight is the better option in the long run if you have access to it. Try changing your pillow case frequently if you don't already- you can also just use a clean cotton t shirt around your pillowcase. I would also suggest you try topical niacinamide. It is Peat approved and actually works quite well. Worth looking into anyway. It also won't dry your skin out like peroxide if the solution is free of alcohol.

Topical nicotinamide compared with clindamycin gel in the treatment of inflammatory acne vulgaris. - PubMed - NCBI
This study showed topical niacinamide was more effective than a topical antimicrobial solution. 82% of the patients showed improvement with a 60% reduction in lesions and 52% reduction in acne severity.

I've had a rather big outbreak today and it's making me majorly depressed. I skip social occasions that I should be going to over the embarrassment of the acne. What's really annoying me is I have no clue what is causing it and no clue how to stop it. I think I'm going to get an anti biotic from the doctor as I'm at wits end with it now and getting very frustrated. My diet us down to a very limited amount of food and even that doesn't seem to stop it.

 

[Dopamine]

I've had a rather big outbreak today and it's making me majorly depressed. I skip social occasions that I should be going to over the embarrassment of the acne. What's really annoying me is I have no clue what is causing it and no clue how to stop it. I think I'm going to get an anti biotic from the doctor as I'm at wits end with it now and getting very frustrated. My diet us down to a very limited amount of food and even that doesn't seem to stop it.

Restricting your diet may be making you depressed and stressing you out if your not getting enough calories, salt, protein etc... I'm sure you know that. I would avoid placing unnecessary restrictions especially if you feel they aren't working.

3 Scientific Reasons Why Everyone With Acne Should Try Zinc
This is an interesting comparison of zinc vs antibiotics. You could absolutely go to the doctor for antibiotics and that may be the best thing for you however zinc, topical niacinamide, and sun exposure may be worth a try first. The combination of both methods would probaly work really well. Good luck

also letting your facial hair grow out a little can help hide acne in the meantime depending on where you get it on your face...

 

[Ulla]

I posted this in some other thread awhile ago.
Maybe something more to consider about. This author suggests Taurine.
I wish you the best.

PS: I am not anti-fructose.

Fructose, Insulin, And Taurine!

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.​

 

[Amazoniac]

Eire, all I can comment is that there are other factors in sun exposure that improves skin other than vit D. But if eating liver makes your acne worse, then it's worth looking at the proper balance of fat-soluble vitamins; it's quite easy to disrupt their balance by the vitamin A in liver if you're already low in vit D; even mineral balance is worth considering.
And there are some lords on the forum that are quite skeptic about vit D supplements, I don't have any opinion on that though..

 

[jyb]

I think I'm going to get an anti biotic from the doctor as I'm at wits end with it now and getting very frustrated. My diet us down to a very limited amount of food and even that doesn't seem to stop it.

Have you considered the possibility that even those foods you selected are absolute crap? It is very easy to get it wrong based on theoretical reasons or on merely eliminating problematic foods without questioning the core way of eating.

 

[tara]

but I'm already very skinny and would be scared I'd lose too much weight.

If you're not eating enough, or nutritious enough, that can mess all sorts of things up. I'd put that at the top of the list, and then after a few months of eating adequately, see if the acne has begun to resolve itself. Eating a very limited and inadequate diet in order to avoid triggering the acne doesn't seem like a long-term winning strategy. If you get well-enough nourished, there's a chance your body will just sort itself out. Most people do, without severe restrictions, after the hormonal disruptions of puberty. (I'd still go easy on the PUFAs though.)

 

[EIRE24]

Have you considered the possibility that even those foods you selected are absolute crap? It is very easy to get it wrong based on theoretical reasons or on merely eliminating problematic foods without questioning the core way of eating.

So what would you reccomend? It's just the acne seemed to have come upon me while drinking lots of caffeine, eating lots of sugar and also eating things like liver. It's strange to me that the acne still persists but not as bad as when I was eating those foods. I'm at a loss to be honest

 

[EIRE24]

If you're not eating enough, or nutritious enough, that can mess all sorts of things up. I'd put that at the top of the list, and then after a few months of eating adequately, see if the acne has begun to resolve itself. Eating a very limited and inadequate diet in order to avoid triggering the acne doesn't seem like a long-term winning strategy. If you get well-enough nourished, there's a chance your body will just sort itself out. Most people do, without severe restrictions, after the hormonal disruptions of puberty. (I'd still go easy on the PUFAs though.)

Yea I have thought about this. Doesn't make much sense to me that the only time my actual face cleared was when I went on holiday to Thailand with some friends (lads) and we drank a lot and barely ate a thing. My face was crystal clear for the whole holiday. I'm starting to think maybe it has nothing to do with diet and food and more to do with my face and hygiene in general?

 

[tara]

Yea I have thought about this. Doesn't make much sense to me that the only time my actual face cleared was when I went on holiday to Thailand with some friends (lads) and we drank a lot and barely ate a thing. My face was crystal clear for the whole holiday. I'm starting to think maybe it has nothing to do with diet and food and more to do with my face and hygiene in general?

Speculating, wonder if it could be that when you start to eat a bit more nourishing food, you start producing a few hormones, but have not yet sustained a stable energy balance long enough to allow those acne-affecting hormones to balance fully?

 

[EIRE24]

Speculating, wonder if it could be that when you start to eat a bit more nourishing food, you start producing a few hormones, but have not yet sustained a stable energy balance long enough to allow those acne-affecting hormones to balance fully?

I'm not so sure? I have no idea what causes it. I'm so lost at this stage it isn't even funny

 

[tara]

When lost, I'd suggest checking basic nutrition to make sure you are covering basic needs, incl carbs and protein and micronutrients and calories. If that means upping nutrition, then do it for a while and see if energy and metabolism improve. And monitor temps and heartrate.
I'd be doubtful that watching the increase or decrease in acne over the short term would provide a very reliable guide to suitable diet.

 

[Atalanta]

I've had a rather big outbreak today and it's making me majorly depressed. I skip social occasions that I should be going to over the embarrassment of the acne. What's really annoying me is I have no clue what is causing it and no clue how to stop it. I think I'm going to get an anti biotic from the doctor as I'm at wits end with it now and getting very frustrated. My diet us down to a very limited amount of food and even that doesn't seem to stop it.

I think this is the best short term option. Many people don't understand the psychological trauma of severe acne. Acne is a complex condition and there is no single identifiable cause. That's why you get 100 different solutions from 100 different people.

It is unlikely that your acne will clear quickly following any of the suggested remedies; you don't know what is causing it, so where do you start? In the meantime, you are emotionally distraught and that is not good for your physical or mental health. Your distress is triggering all kinds of hormonal/chemical imbalances that can cause long-term health problems. It is wise to be concerned about the long-term consequences of using antibiotics to treat acne, but if the trade-off is misery and social isolation in the present and the foreseeable future, are you really living?

The antibiotics will likely clear your skin faster than any of the suggestions offered here. When you start looking better, you will feel better and then you can try to fix the problem. It is possible that your acne may not return after antibiotic therapy.

Maybe the lesson to be learned from this experience is that if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Why did you switch to a Peat-style diet?

I know lots of healthy, successful, attractive people who eat the most anti-Peat foods. If you were looking and feeling good on your pre-Peat diet, you should not have changed it simply because Ray Peat does not approve of the foods you were eating. Do what works for you, no matter what Ray Peat says. There are just too many healthy people eating low-sugar, high starch diets(including whole grains) for any rational person to accept that milk and sugar(fruit) are the ideal foods for humans.

In fact, as difficult as it is for me to accept, there are lots of healthy people who ingest MUCH more than 5 grams of PUFA everyday. And they are not overweight, they don't have cancer, fatty liver, thyroid problems, high cortisol, or any of the conditions that people who don't live on milk and fruit are supposed to have. They are fully participating in life and not obsessing about their diet and health, while so many people who follow Peat seem to be putting life on hold until they achieve perfect health. I would rather live to fifty eating foods that I like and enjoying my life, than live to 100 eating food that I hate and which destroyed my physical beauty and mental health.

 

[Richiebogie]

Antibiotics work well on acne. If you have trouble getting a prescription then you could try eating small amounts of honey, coconut and garlic, though probably not at the same time!

 

[Parsifal]

I've notied that dopamin and prolactin are related to skin problems (dandruff, acne, psoriasis). If I have too much sex, get gut irritation (by too much fat by the way) or endotoxins, these problems will appear. I noticed than since directly reducing gut serotonin (with BCAA and Tyrosine), my tolerance to these issue increased.

Vitamin A is dopaminergic btw.

 

[tara]

I think this [antibiotics] is the best short term option.

Seems like a reasonable short term option, while addressing other issues.

Antibiotics work well on acne. If you have trouble getting a prescription then you could try eating small amounts of honey, coconut and garlic, though probably not at the same time!

Why not together? :)