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You have heard it before; eating certain foods does not
cause acne. Is this true about all foods? Highly processed
foods that include white bread, cookies, cake, pastries, and
soft drinks; contain carbohydrates that effect your blood
sugar.

Will this type of food cause acne?

Carbohydrates come in two forms: sugars and starches.
Your body breaks down the food you eat into a carbohydrate.
Highly processed foods are broken down into the sugar
glucose. Your body will then take the glucose and convert it
into energy. That is why you get a “sugar high” after eating
these types of foods. Your cells must use insulin in order to
convert the sugar into energy.

Insulin is a hormone that is made in the pancreas. Your
pancreas produces the insulin based on the increase of
your blood sugar levels. The higher the amount of glucose
entering your blood stream, the higher amount of insulin.
There are several hormones that are used to regulate your
blood sugar.

How does this affect acne?

Hormones play a large part in acne flare-ups. When there is
an increase in your hormone levels, your oil glands begin to
secrete higher levels of oil. The highly processed foods that
you eat generate a high level of glucose in your blood. To
convert all of this to energy your pancreas produces higher
levels of hormones, which includes the insulin hormone.

Each hair follicle has an oil gland. The oil glands sense
the higher levels of hormones and begin to produce higher
levels of oil. The excess oil is more than the hair follicles
can handle. As the oil travels through the hair follicle it
picks up dead skin cells. As the dead skin cells mix with
the oil the hair follicle becomes clogged.

Acne results from the clogged hair follicle. You may
experience a whitehead, blackhead, or an inflamed pustule.

If you suffer from acne, pay attention to what you are eating.
Notice if your acne tends to get worse when you have
had a lot of highly processed foods. Pastries, doughnuts,
sandwiches made with white bread, soft drinks could lead to
acne flare-ups.

In order to determine if your acne is related to this type of
eating, stop eating highly processed foods for a least six
weeks. It will take that long for your acne to heal and for
you to determine if new outbreaks are food related.

Writing down what you eat and tracking the condition of
your acne during this time may help determine if eating
these foods are causing your acne. There are many other
factors that may cause acne, but you should be able to tell
a difference if this is what is causing your acne.

You may lose some weight while you are waiting.