Acne

[tara]

Acne is a complex condition and there is no single identifiable cause. That's why you get 100 different solutions from 100 different people.

Yeah.

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.

There are some exceptions, but a lot of us got here because we were not thriving on whatever we were doing before, and we've been looking for ideas on how to improve on that.

 

[EIRE24]

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.

I agree 100% with everything you have said. I'm not sure why I switched but if I could go back, I would.

I'm not sure what an anti biotic will do as I'm totally unsure if the acne has anything to do with my gut at all? It feels like as if it's actually a facial thing as I never get cramps etc.

Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it.

 

[EIRE24]

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!

I'm not sure honey agrees with me at all along with most high fructose fruits. I do like garlic though and use coconut oil sparingly as I try to run a low fat diet.

Thanks for the advice

 

[Ritchie]

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

I find this interesting. I'm 38, don't have any acne problems apart from the odd break out, but the last time I took LSD I was about 20 or 21, and at the time I was going through a stage of having a lot of facial acne. The day after taking LSD my skin was incredibly clear and glowing, zero acne. It was uncanny. Had pretty much all disappeared when I woke up, I found it so strange at the time. People were commenting on how healthy and radiant my skin was looking and in the back of my mind I was thinking, this is weird i've just been tripping for the last day or so then the acne came back a few days later like you said. I can't remember hearing of it happening to anyone else, but it's interesting that you mention it here, jolted my memory.. and it would make sense if it was due to the rapid decrease in serotonin levels from the LSD.

 

[EIRE24]

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!

Would an anti biotic not work as well if it was a problem with my face and blocked pores rather than the gut or would an anti biotic target the whole lot? I'm guessing changes would not be seen for a few months on an anti biotic?

 

[EIRE24]

I find this interesting. I'm 38, don't have any acne problems apart from the odd break out, but the last time I took LSD I was about 20 or 21, and at the time I was going through a stage of having a lot of facial acne. The day after taking LSD my skin was incredibly clear and glowing, zero acne. It was uncanny. Had pretty much all disappeared when I woke up, I found it so strange at the time. People were commenting on how healthy and radiant my skin was looking and in the back of my mind I was thinking, this is weird i've just been tripping for the last day or so then the acne came back a few days later like you said. I can't remember hearing of it happening to anyone else, but it's interesting that you mention it here, jolted my memory.. and it would make sense if it was due to the rapid decrease in serotonin levels from the LSD.

I've pretty much had the same thing from taking cocaine. Not that they are the same drug but my acne always came back worse afterwards. I'm guessing an anti biotic would deplete serotonin also?

 

[tara]

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

and use coconut oil sparingly as I try to run a low fat diet

Why are you doing this? It seems you may need more calories, and it's possible your body could use more sat fat specifically?

 

[bobbybobbob]

It is wise to be concerned about the long-term consequences of using antibiotics to treat acne

I know the party line around here is that antibiotics are harmless, but many folks including me have felt like courses of antibiotics created even worse health problems in the intermediate term. It's not some abstract risk in the long term, it's even worse inflammation in about four months.

I doubt some doxycycline or tetracycline is going to help bad acne all that much, anyway. That's effectively for relatively light cases.

This guy actually sounds like a neurotic with an eating disorder. He says he's early 20s and underweight. Somebody posted a link to youreatopia.com about acne being normal in the process of recovery from an eating disorder. The answer here might be: tough luck, your skin is going to be bad for most of this year while you recover from having under-eaten for the previous few years. No drugs or diet experiments. Tough it out.

I think you see this a great deal now on the internet. People in their 20s where it's almost impossible they're having legit nutritional problems. It's not a vitamin/mineral or PUFA thing. It's psycho-social. It's undereating and anxiety/stress. The odds this kid is zinc deficient are very low.

 

[tara]

Somebody posted a link to youreatopia.com about acne being normal in the process of recovery from an eating disorder.

Acne in Recovery: I Know, Let’s Just Cut Out Food Groups!

I don't endorse Gwyneth's benign attitude to estrogenic contraceptives, but I think she makes some good points otherwise.

 

[Richiebogie]

youreatopia says:

The hormone known to be a key player in the pathogenesis of acne is dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). In fact dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DS) can be found in concentrated levels in pre-menarchical young girls who present with acne. What this means is that pubertal development will temporarily mix up the various androgen and estrogen levels and the acne resolves with sexual maturation.

It is common for patients undergoing recovery from restrictive eating disorders to have a period of severe acne and it coincides with something akin to going through puberty yet again as the body re-establishes its natural sex hormone balance.

This quote suggests that acne may be a sign of recovery. That may explain why LSD, cocaine and alcohol stops the acne - because it stops the recovery!

Perhaps getting back on fruit and milk will be the quickest way to cross the acne river and reach clear skin territory...!

 

[Dopamine]

youreatopia says:

This quote suggests that acne may be a sign of recovery. That may explain why LSD, cocaine and alcohol stops the acne - because it stops the recovery!

Perhaps getting back on fruit and milk will be the quickest way to cross the acne river and reach clear skin territory...!

I think the quote suggested that acne is a sign of metabolic imbalance and not necessarily recovery. Once balance is found- it is expected that the acne will go away. Perhaps LSD makes acne go away because this metabolic balance has been found. The LSD afterglow gives me very warm hands and feet which persists for awhile before it slowly tapers off- I think the dopaminergic properties of LSD are highly thermogenic, pro-metabolic, and pro libido similarly to thyroid.

 

[bobbybobbob]

Here's a mildly tipsy and lightly relevant discourse about calories in history. I think under-eating causes loads of health problem and it's probably more pervasive now than ever. Smart people are probably more prone to under-eating because of their tendency to over-power instinct.

You read about relatively lightly worked monks and nuns in middle ages western europe eating 5,500 calories a day and more. We have their account books and know the foods they consumed. They kept meticulous records. The Superiors were always worried about the finances of the monastery/nunnery and the food supply because they faced revolt if they failed to serve up good grub. Loads of meat and fish and beer and bread daily. It was a population control mechanism, in part. The bargain joining most Catholic orders was you gave up having a family in order to not be hungry, and to also have some measure of professional and intellectual satisfaction and camaraderie. The average peasant (man and woman) spent something like four months a year mindlessly threshing grain with a stick. No joke, you spent a great portion of your life beating a pile of hay with a stick, when you weren't manualy cutting it with a scythe, and you were often quite hungry.

The nunneries and monasteries, on the other hand, carried out centuries running plant and animal breeding experiments and kept important records and ran other important social functions. As a novitiate you gained access to the smartest people in your society and what few books there were. (Scottish nuns bread the greyhound into existence and ran the races and set the odds, developing the beginnings of a lot of modern statistical methods.)

What's my point here? Well we can plainly see what some white people who deliberately prioritized good food over other other priorities like personal freedom chose historically. They would eat huge quantities of beer and bread and meat and dairy products. 5K calories and more every day. They lived a long time in very good health. We know this from their meticulous records. It's an interesting historical "experiment."

I think eating disorders are super widespread now because of sedentarism and social disorder. Most of us are built to burn through loads of calories walking around in the sunshine and doing a bit (not too much) of hard manual labor. Eating alone is also toxic. People who are relatively sedentary instinctively eat what the body demands (often alone, outside of healthy social contexts) in the modern world then and start getting fat. People of a certain temperament freak about the weight gain and then develop eating disorders. But the real problem is we're not built to be sitting around inside all the time, often socially atomized. It's the lifestyle, not the food. Active people eating according to instinct rarely get fat. By active I don't mean daily 45 minute gym sessions. I mean spending hours a day on your feet and doing a little bit of work. Caloric flux.

You have to get the calories up. Shoot for 4K. Wheat is fine. Butter and ice cream are great. The trick is to burn it off. Gotta find the time to walk or bicycle. Wake up early and bicycle for an hour. (**** gyms, it's gotta be outside, no matter the weather.) Do another hour in the evening. Eat and move. Move and eat. When you pop pills and rub creams and alcohol sprays on yourself you don't know how crazy you look to sane and healthy people. Quite rightly.

 

[Sheila]

Ho Hum Mr Eire24, FWIW,
you make the observations "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....and barely ate a thing", could the lack of acne be as a result of taking the strain off your gut during that time? as well as the exposure to sunshine? Vodka in volume may, just may, have a sterilising effect also, not sure (many alcohols are problematic). Would something like low dose cyproheptadiene be helpful, or even, for your current diet (but not Peat approved) some digestive enzymes for a short while to see if it is a breakdown issue? With an elevated TSH at your age, one could suspect digestive enzymes might be lowered.
Just a thought. I hope you find some peace of mind soon.
Sheila

 

[EIRE24]

I know the party line around here is that antibiotics are harmless, but many folks including me have felt like courses of antibiotics created even worse health problems in the intermediate term. It's not some abstract risk in the long term, it's even worse inflammation in about four months.

I doubt some doxycycline or tetracycline is going to help bad acne all that much, anyway. That's effectively for relatively light cases.

This guy actually sounds like a neurotic with an eating disorder. He says he's early 20s and underweight. Somebody posted a link to youreatopia.com about acne being normal in the process of recovery from an eating disorder. The answer here might be: tough luck, your skin is going to be bad for most of this year while you recover from having under-eaten for the previous few years. No drugs or diet experiments. Tough it out.

I think you see this a great deal now on the internet. People in their 20s where it's almost impossible they're having legit nutritional problems. It's not a vitamin/mineral or PUFA thing. It's psycho-social. It's undereating and anxiety/stress. The odds this kid is zinc deficient are very low.

My acne isn't severe but it is annoying and I just want rid of it.

I never said I was under weight or in recovery so I don't see where you've got that from?

you're just simply making assumptions but thanks for your little piece.

 

[EIRE24]

youreatopia says:


This quote suggests that acne may be a sign of recovery. That may explain why LSD, cocaine and alcohol stops the acne - because it stops the recovery!

Perhaps getting back on fruit and milk will be the quickest way to cross the acne river and reach clear skin territory...!

Ya I'll just switch back to drinking milk and eating fruit. Basically what caused me to break out in the first place. I'm not trying to be smart but it just doesn't work for me. I've not tried large amount of OJ or simple table sugar though so I may give that a go

 

[EIRE24]

Ho Hum Mr Eire24, FWIW,
you make the observations "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....and barely ate a thing", could the lack of acne be as a result of taking the strain off your gut during that time? as well as the exposure to sunshine? Vodka in volume may, just may, have a sterilising effect also, not sure (many alcohols are problematic). Would something like low dose cyproheptadiene be helpful, or even, for your current diet (but not Peat approved) some digestive enzymes for a short while to see if it is a breakdown issue? With an elevated TSH at your age, one could suspect digestive enzymes might be lowered.
Just a thought. I hope you find some peace of mind soon.
Sheila

Yes Sheila, this was my thought exactly. With very little to disturb the gut and the vodka acting as a sterilising agent. I also did get good sunshine.

I often think it could be my gut but then I don't ever get cramps or diareah so it makes me think maybe I'm wrong?

My plan is to take an AB and also start on some T3 to see if it helps with my temps and pulse.

Thanks for the advice,

 

[EIRE24]

Here's a mildly tipsy and lightly relevant discourse about calories in history. I think under-eating causes loads of health problem and it's probably more pervasive now than ever. Smart people are probably more prone to under-eating because of their tendency to over-power instinct.

You read about relatively lightly worked monks and nuns in middle ages western europe eating 5,500 calories a day and more. We have their account books and know the foods they consumed. They kept meticulous records. The Superiors were always worried about the finances of the monastery/nunnery and the food supply because they faced revolt if they failed to serve up good grub. Loads of meat and fish and beer and bread daily. It was a population control mechanism, in part. The bargain joining most Catholic orders was you gave up having a family in order to not be hungry, and to also have some measure of professional and intellectual satisfaction and camaraderie. The average peasant (man and woman) spent something like four months a year mindlessly threshing grain with a stick. No joke, you spent a great portion of your life beating a pile of hay with a stick, when you weren't manualy cutting it with a scythe, and you were often quite hungry.

The nunneries and monasteries, on the other hand, carried out centuries running plant and animal breeding experiments and kept important records and ran other important social functions. As a novitiate you gained access to the smartest people in your society and what few books there were. (Scottish nuns bread the greyhound into existence and ran the races and set the odds, developing the beginnings of a lot of modern statistical methods.)

What's my point here? Well we can plainly see what some white people who deliberately prioritized good food over other other priorities like personal freedom chose historically. They would eat huge quantities of beer and bread and meat and dairy products. 5K calories and more every day. They lived a long time in very good health. We know this from their meticulous records. It's an interesting historical "experiment."

I think eating disorders are super widespread now because of sedentarism and social disorder. Most of us are built to burn through loads of calories walking around in the sunshine and doing a bit (not too much) of hard manual labor. Eating alone is also toxic. People who are relatively sedentary instinctively eat what the body demands (often alone, outside of healthy social contexts) in the modern world then and start getting fat. People of a certain temperament freak about the weight gain and then develop eating disorders. But the real problem is we're not built to be sitting around inside all the time, often socially atomized. It's the lifestyle, not the food. Active people eating according to instinct rarely get fat. By active I don't mean daily 45 minute gym sessions. I mean spending hours a day on your feet and doing a little bit of work. Caloric flux.

You have to get the calories up. Shoot for 4K. Wheat is fine. Butter and ice cream are great. The trick is to burn it off. Gotta find the time to walk or bicycle. Wake up early and bicycle for an hour. (**** gyms, it's gotta be outside, no matter the weather.) Do another hour in the evening. Eat and move. Move and eat. When you pop pills and rub creams and alcohol sprays on yourself you don't know how crazy you look to sane and healthy people. Quite rightly.

I agree with what you've said here. I am going to get more active in the form of walking and just doing more rather than sitting. I'll obviously compliment this with more food and calories.

I used to be a professional footballer before and that's pretty much how things went. I trained hard and ate harder.

So you're telling me wheat and ice cream are fine to eat, even though I've seen problems with them? You don't think I'd see better results sticking to OJ, sugar and potatoes? I guess things like liver and oysters would be important if I was to increase my sugar intake?

Last thought on this, my WBC count was low in my last lab result. I'm wondering if this could be hindering my immune system in fighting off the bacteria? Just a thought....

Thanks everyone for the advice, greatly appreciated and I've taken everything on board

 

[Sheila]

Dear Eire24,
I am not sure cramps/diarrhoea are always required for high serotonin, especially when you are younger and possibly when one is male. Women seem to react more 'obviously' for want of a better word.
I often think of lowered protein, vitamin a and zinc levels when I see a lowered WBC, just as when there is a seriously elevated count it seems important not to run out of these factors, as immature, over-production uses them up so much.
It might also be some kind of systemic irritation/inflammation and for that, I would look towards the gut.
Good luck with your plan, it's great to see you working it out for you.
Sheila

 

[EIRE24]

Dear Eire24,
I am not sure cramps/diarrhoea are always required for high serotonin, especially when you are younger and possibly when one is male. Women seem to react more 'obviously' for want of a better word.
I often think of lowered protein, vitamin a and zinc levels when I see a lowered WBC, just as when there is a seriously elevated count it seems important not to run out of these factors, as immature, over-production uses them up so much.
It might also be some kind of systemic irritation/inflammation and for that, I would look towards the gut.
Good luck with your plan, it's great to see you working it out for you.
Sheila

I could definitely do with increasing protein but I am not so sure about zinc or vitamin A being low. What would be good to increase zinc apart from red meat? I know oysters are very good but I can't stomach them at all...

 

[Ulla]

I could definitely do with increasing protein but I am not so sure about zinc or vitamin A being low. What would be good to increase zinc apart from red meat? I know oysters are very good but I can't stomach them at all...

I had some episode when suddenly my skin got better. It lasted for 3 weeks. And then it has worsen again. That was 1,5 month ago.
I analyzed the foods and noticed that in that time I was eating more beef, like 3 times per week.

I have just started eating more red meet again to see if that is the case - Zinc.
I also don't eat oysters. I will also start with Zn supplement.
I have vitamin A, 10.000 IU but didn't notice nothing positive related to skin.

Zinc deficiency is my hope at the moment.