Top 4 Foods That Are Associated With Acne

The connection between acne and diet has been established beyond reasonable room for doubt, in recent days. Here, certain foods have been implicated for causing or at least aggravating acne in some people.

1) One of these foods that have been associated with acne is partially skimmed milk. In studies that attracted a lot of interest in dermatological circles, it was observed that the consumption of partially skimmed milk by some people triggered acne. The exact mechanism through which this was taking place is still a subject of conjecture. Of the various theories that have been advanced to explain this, the most plausible one is probably the one that blames the sex hormones present in the milk as being to blame for causation of acne in the people who consume it. What is worth noting here is that this does not occur to everyone who consumes partially skimmed milk. Indeed, it only occurs in a minority of people – hence the reason you should not start avoiding milk for fear of acne! But the connection is nonetheless there, and well established.

2) Sherbet, which is a frozen sort of dessert containing a bit of dairy is another food that has been seen to have an effect of causing, or aggravating acne in some people. Again, the mechanism through which this takes place is still subject of conjecture. Seeing that main ‘active ingredient’ in Sherbet is the dairy formulation in it, we may have to go with the hormonal theory too here: where the acne causing/aggravating effect is attributed to the sex hormones present in the Sherbet, as in the partially skimmed milk previously mentioned.

3) Third is cream cheese, as another food product which has been associated with the incidence of acne in some people. Since cream cheese is also a dairy product, it would be reasonable – in the absence of another explanatory theory – to assume that the causation of acne here is because of the sex hormones in the cream cheese.

4) Fourth is cottage cheese as yet another food which has been associated with incidence of acne in certain people. Cottage cheese is also a dairy product – so that the mechanism through which it causes acne is likely to be the very same one of sex hormone action.

By the way when we talk about sex hormones causing acne, it is worth noting that this is also the main mechanism through which acne occurs, even where it is not linked to consumption of any foods. Since it has been observed that hormones that remain present in foods we eat tend to still have effects on us (as consumers of the foods), it would be plausible to attribute the connection that so many diary products seem to have with acne to the ‘residual hormones’ in them. But once again, this should not be seen as blanket condemnation of dairy products. When all is said and done, the causation or aggravation of acne by dairy products only occurs in certain people.