They say that sweets and milk give you blackheads, and spicy foods provoke an exacerbation of atopic dermatitis. Because of these stereotypes, people with acne tendency refuse dairy products, and those living with atopic dermatitis eat only turkey and steamed porridge without salt and sugar, fearing another attack. Let’s find out how diet affects your skin and what you shouldn’t be afraid of.
Acne
Dermatovenerologists and cosmetologists often prohibit acne patients from eating foods with a high glycemic index. They believe that changing the diet prevents new rashes. The stop list includes all sweets, baked goods, fast food, soda, milk, and dairy products.
High glycemic load contributes to increased insulin or insulin-like growth factor signaling. The production of sebum increases. The skin is not exfoliated enough, and horny flakes close the ducts of sebaceous glands, not allowing sebum to come out. This can lead to acne. To prevent this from happening, you need to eliminate foods with a high glycemic load. However, it’s important to build long-term and correct eating behavior rather than short-term diets.
But there is an alternative view – acne isn’t always related to diet and people torture themselves with heavy bans for nothing. Even if the skin reacts to sweets and milk with inflammation, it’s enough to limit such products, but not to ban them forever. His opinion is supported by reviews that consider the benefits of restricting diet for acne to be subjective. It’s possible that people with acne eat sweets more often due to stress, and the diet doesn’t really affect the severity of the disease.
Often acne is associated with changes in the sebaceous-hair follicle under the influence of sex hormones and genetic predisposition. Some products may cause exacerbation of acne and other skin diseases. There are studies showing the benefit of diet in the complex treatment of acne, but it should be understood that diet isn’t the main factor of acne. One diet alone cannot cure it, like knowing all the rules of football cannot make you become a winner at a beting site.
The influence of food on acne has been investigated by many scientists. For example, in Malaysia they compared two groups of young people from 10 to 24. It turned out that among those living with acne, there were more sweet eaters than in the control group. They more often preferred foods with a high glycemic index and ate on average 150 kilocalories more per day. And they ate milk and ice cream just as often as the healthy control group.
But the Italians found a link between acne and eating milk more than three times a week, with people with acne more often preferring skim milk to whole milk. Another researcher reached the same conclusion, adding that acne sufferers’ diets lacked fish, fresh fruits and vegetables.
Atopic Dermatitis
Allergy sufferers are meticulous about their diet. It’s clear why: even invisible traces of peanuts in dessert sometimes drive them to Quincke’s edema and hospitalization. People with atopic dermatitis also avoid foods that provoke rashes. And rightly so: exacerbations are often caused by foods to which the immune system is oversensitive.
Aggravation of atopic dermatitis is caused by foods that increase the release of the inflammatory mediator histamine: citrus fruits, chocolate, coffee, bananas, strawberries, sauces, pickles, sweets with flavorings and coloring agents. Patients with food allergies dermatitis is exacerbated when using an allergen product.
Atopic dermatitis is the result of abnormal intestinal function. Observation has shown that potential atopy already in infancy changes the intestinal microflora: useful bifidobacteria becomes less and conditionally-pathogenic and harmful – more. The internal barrier of the intestine is thinning, and food molecules become accessible to the immune system, which reacts too violently to them throughout life. The lack of lactobacilli causes epidermal staphylococcus aureus colonies to proliferate – not only in the gut, but also on the skin. This is another factor in the allergy of the growing body.
Japanese scientists have proposed treating atopic dermatitis with a vegetarian diet. They conducted studies and proved that two months of renunciation of meat reduces the manifestations of atopic dermatitis by 50% on a special scale. Patients even had lower levels of eosinophils and specific enzymes in their blood, but allergy markers never disappeared.
Nutrition for Healthy Skin
Many people don’t have dermatologic diseases, but they worry about the condition of their skin. Women in particular are passionate about it. Some use the ten-step Korean care system and constantly change cosmetics for more innovative ones. Others buy vitamins “for skin and hair” on the advice of bloggers. Others are figuring out what to eat to stay young and beautiful.
Improper nutrition accelerates skin aging and exacerbates age-related changes. It’s best to stick to Mediterranean cuisine, rich in omega fats and polyunsaturated fatty acids. It’s good for the health and beauty of the skin. It’s worth adding fish, seafood, fresh vegetables and vegetable oil to your diet.
Ultraviolet light is far more harmful than improper nutrition. It accelerates the appearance of wrinkles, weakens the skin’s immune system, and provokes the development of carcinoma, a skin malignancy. It’s proven that an excess of red meat and animal fat in the diet increases the risk of developing squamous cell cancer. Conversely, a Mediterranean diet can protect against melanoma.
If your skin looks dull and flaky, hypovitaminosis may be the cause. If your skin is low in vitamin C, your skin’s antioxidant defenses may be compromised, making it more fragile and vulnerable to ultraviolet light, and slowing the healing of wounds and inflammation.
