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

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

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

The Link Between Dairy Products and Acne

We found in many people there's a defnite link between dairy intake and acne. We find for many people when they eat a lot of dairy products, especially milk and a lot of dairy products like ice cream, cheese and dairy that it flares their acne. So what I've started to do in many of my patients is to take them off dairy products, but of course I make certain that they take a calcium supplement: very important for your bones or to eat foods high in calcium, for example: broccoli, kale, sardines - there are many other foods that have calcium, there are many people that we still need to use acne treatments, for example topical treatments or maybe internal treatments but when we take them off dairy products, their acne improves dramatically.

How to Determine if Dairy is Causing Your Acne

So you may want to do a test and take yourself off your dairy products for one month or so and see if your acne improves. Even if you're drinking whole milk or skim milk or organic milk or regular milk it doesn't really matter: it seems to be the milk product itself. You may want to try soy milk or rice milk or even almond milk, because those don't seem to have any negative effect on your acne. Stop your cheese, stop ice cream, all your dairy products and you may see a great improvement in your acne.

If you have any other questions about the link between dairy and acne go to About.com.