myFM: All About Acne

Acne has a bunch of underlying issues. The hereditary component is from a way that you may not think. You inherit a lot of your microbiome from mom during birth. How you were born - natural birth or Cesarean - can affect your microbiome for life. Then there’s the amount of times you have taken antibiotics in your life. That’s a huge factor in how healthy your gut microbiome is and that affects your gut, liver and detoxification.

Your skin produces oil through the pores to form a protective layer that's really important for skin, but the clogging of the pores, not so much.That’s what acne is, an excess of oil and build up that clogs pores. That’s what creates the inflammation and produces bacteria. Sure, you can slap on some medication, take antibiotics, take Accutane for three months, go on the contraceptive pill or something like that, but that’s just a quick, it’s not a long term fix. 

Another cause can be from eating refined, packaged and sugary foods, and that has to do with insulin. Once you eat one of these foods, yourblood sugar goes up, and the body makes a lot of insulin to deal with the surge of sugar, even from white bread. That spike in insulin and blood sugar will cause a follicular hyperkeratosis. Basically that’s a long word that means the skin’s not turning over as well as it should. And so, cells get stuck in the skin and then those stuck cells can get more inflamed, and then you end up with a pimple (or many pimples). So, one of the major things to start with is eliminating the refined and processed foods and the sugary and starchy foods. This whole cycle of having too much insulin can fall under what’s called insulin resistance, as in... your body needs a boat load more insulin to do the job because the cells have become insensitive to the insulin (as in... resistant). This hyperkeratosis can also cause more skin tags and a darkening of the skin folds in your neck and in your armpits. 

Another key food is dairy. It’s everywhere: in your coffee, on your cereal, in your sandwich. Basically, breakfast, lunch and dinner, our milk, our cheese, our ice cream. All dairy is very high in hormones - 60 different hormones in milk to be exact. And these are not added like growth hormone, these are just naturally occurring hormones.

Start by writing out what you’re eating every day. No shame or judgement, but just see what’s actually happening so you can make changes moving forward. For more on this, check out Episode 62 of Eat This with Lianne here.

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