Video:What to Know About the Link Between Acne and Diet

Transcript:What to Know About the Link Between Acne and Diet

Hi, this is Dr. Debra Jaliman, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City and author of the book Skin Rules: Trade Secrets from a Top New York Dermatologist here to talk about the link between acne and diet for About.com.

Foods with a High Glycemic Index Can Cause Acne

Many people ask me about the link between their diet and acne and there are many things I've learned along the way that definitely make acne worse. For example, if you have a lot of junk food, and what do I mean by that? Foods that have a high glycemic index. So for example, let's say you have a lot of pizza, donuts, chocolates: foods that are very high in sugar and very high in simple carbohydrates. We find that those foods make acne much worse and there are a lot of studies to show that.

Dairy Can Cause Acne

The other foods that make acne a lot worse are dairy foods. We used to think it was the dairy because of the high hormone levels from the cows. So we suggested to patients that they use organic dairy. But even using that didn't make a difference and it actually is a lot of the milk products and the dairy. So what you may want to do if you have acne is to try a diet that's low in dairy and low in high glycemic foods.

What Foods Should You Eat with Acne?

So what kind of foods would you eat. We suggest to patients to eat foods high in fruits, vegetables, lean meat, lean proteins, nuts, and complex carbohydrates. So instead of having white bread for example, you would have whole wheat bread. Instead of having white rice, you would have brown rice and you would look for complex carbohydrates. That seems to make a big difference in my patients with acne. And this isn't to say that you don't have to treat the acne from either the topical standpoint or treat it internally sometimes.

But we find that when people change their diet, it has an incredibly positive effect on the acne. Now we know that if you have a diet high in potato chips, lots of junk food, that it really makes a difference in terms of breaking the skin out. So if you can eliminate a lot of thes junk foods: pizza, potato chips, french fries, high fatty foods, high glcemic foods, you will find that your skin will appreciably improve.

If you have any questions about the link between your diet and acne, please go to About.com for more information.