The Anti-Acne Diet: Diet and Nutrition tips for a Clear and Glowing Skin
Your skin condition totally depends on what you eat and your lifestyle. Healthy skin is a reflection of overall wellness – Howard Murad
Whatever you eat shows up on your skin and your lifestyle changes will also have an effect on your skin conditions. Besides, Aging is the foremost factor for all the major skin issues such as acne, wrinkles, and spots on your face.
That being said, healthy skin is a combination of different factors such as diet, lifestyle, and skincare. Therefore, good skin care and healthy lifestyle choices can help delay natural aging and prevent various skin problems like acne.
Well, here are some important anti-acne diet and nutrition tips you need to follow to maintain healthy glowing skin.
Read more: The Perfect Diet Plan for Glowing Skin
The Anti-Acne Diet for a Clear and Glowing skin
1. Eat a Healthy Balanced Diet
A perfect balanced diet can help with healthy body and flawless skin. A balanced nutritious diet is a foundation for overall skin care. Well, what is a balanced or healthy diet?
A Balanced or Healthy diet is to include appropriate proportions of Vitamins, Minerals, Macronutrients such as Proteins, Good carbs, and Good Fats into your diet plan. Precisely to say, it’s about eating a lot of whole foods and less processed foods. Following such an anti-acne diet plan, will not only improve your skin texture but it also slows down signs of aging.
If you’re not following any balanced diet and aim for healthy skin, that could be a holy grail task. Moreover, nutrition or a balanced diet is not about taking one kind of food and leaving others. There’s no particular single macronutrient which could protect your skin.
2. Cut down Refined Sugar
When you flood your body with sugar, the extra sugar molecules get attached to collagen protein in your skin thereby your skin loses elasticity and sags. This whole process is known as glycation which exacerbates skin conditions such as acne, wrinkles, rosacea, and others. When your eating excess sugary content foods, your body produces insulin to stabilize blood sugar levels. As insulin production increases, inflammation increases and can exacerbate the pre-existing skin conditions. [1][2]
Therefore, excess sugar is linked to skin wrinkling, premature aging and skin sagging. The World health organization (WHO), recommends keeping sugar content under 25g each day.
Read more: Foods that are bad for your skin
3. Eat enough Omega-3 fatty acids
DHA is an essential and structural component of your skin which is responsible for the health of cell membranes. Therefore, a healthy cell membrane results in soft, supple, wrinkle-free and nourished skin. [3]
Omega-3 fatty acids are the important fats which manage the oil production in your skin, reduce premature aging of your skin, inflammation and also reduces the risk of acne. Not just that, they can keep your skin healthy by safeguarding against the sun like a sunscreen. [4] [5]
Getting omega-3 fatty acids from whole foods such as salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel is the best ideal way to get robust omega-3 intake. Else you could also get it from plant-based omega-3 sources such as hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, walnuts and etc.
In any case, if you’re allergic to such food or you don’t eat a lot of fatty fish, you could include omega-3 supplements as well to your anti-acne diet plan.
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4. Protein for healthy skin
Protein is the most important macronutrient you must include in your diet. According to DRI (Dietary reference intake), you must take 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Protein is called as the ‘King’ because they’re the main building blocks of your body, used to make muscles and for healthy skin. [6]
Animal protein provides all essential amino acids required for your body in the right ratio. Eating animal protein products such as meat, fish, eggs, or dairy is an ideal way to get the required daily dose of protein. However, if you’re vegan, you have a lot of plant-based protein substitutes such as Lentils, Tofu, Beans, Chickpeas, Green peas, Quinoa, Soymilk, Oatmeal, Chia seeds, nuts, nut butter, and protein-rich veggies or fruits.
5. Vitamin C to keep your skin healthy
Vitamin C is a vital molecule for skin health and also a building block for collagen that your skin requires to keep your skin healthy, wrinkle-free, moist and supple. [7][8]
The amazing antioxidant properties of vitamin C help fight free radicals and damage caused by UV rays. It boosts your skin’s collagen production to give a plump, soft, wrinkle-free and fine-line free skin. The antioxidant properties of vitamin C and its role in collagen synthesis result in anti-aging action for a rejuvenated younger-looking skin.
For healthy and younger-looking skin, you need to take appropriate amounts of vitamin c foods which include fruits and veggies. Also, during stressful times, your body tends to consume a lot vitamin c. So, to compensate that eat more vitamin c foods.
Read more: How to use Vitamin C for Skin whitening
6. Limit High-Glycemic Foods
A diet high in glycemic foods is linked to Acne according to a study published in JAND (Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics). [9]
High-glycemic foods digest and absorb into the bloodstream quickly, that results in a spike in blood sugar levels. Whereas, low-glycemic foods digest and absorb the food more slowly which produce a gradual rise in blood sugar or insulin levels. This may also reduce the production of acne, scars or blemishes. Hence include low-glycemic foods such as fresh vegetables, fruits, beans, steel-cut oats and etc. [10][11]
Don’t binge on high-glycemic foods which increase your blood sugar levels such as cakes, crackers, rice cakes, instant oats, white bread and etc)
7. Avoid Diary
Although there is no concrete evidence on the connection between acne and dairy products, most evidence-based studies claim that acne can be irritated by dairy products. [12]
Basically, dairy cows are treated with artificial hormones that have an effect on their milk supply. Researches claim that those hormones may cause hormones imbalance by throwing off your hormones when you consume more dairy products. This triggers acne and acne-related skin problems.
There’s also another study which source that, dairy products when combined with high levels of refined foods or processed foods, it disrupts insulin levels and make your skin more prone to acne. [13][14][15]
Read more: What happens if you eat expired Yogurt?
8. Stay Hydrated
Just like other parts of your body, the skin is also an organ which is made up of cells. And the skin cells, like any other cells, are made up of water. Without sufficient water content, the organs will certainly not function properly. [16]
So, hydrate your body with sufficient water content to maintain optimum skin moisture, for replacing anti-aging treatments, combating skin disorders, eliminating redness, and for overall skin health.
9. Have Prebiotics as well as Probiotics
Probiotics are good bacteria for gut and probiotics are the food for those bacteria. That being said, if you consume prebiotics without probiotics it’s not going to work for your body. Experts consider probiotics to be fundamentals for healthy and youthful skin. Since prebiotics are natural partners to probiotics, eating both can give you healthy skin – balanced, younger-looking and firm skin. [17]
Some of the probiotic foods are Yogurt, kimchee fermented veggies, kefir and so on
Some of the prebiotic foods are more fiber foods, apples, oats, garlic, asparagus, onions and etc
Up to the very end!
Follow these essential anti-acne diet tips to stay healthy and get healthy flawless skin. Know which foods trigger skin problems and what suits your skin. Plan accordingly to get a radiant skin texture.
Let us know the changes in your skin after following these above-mentioned diet tips by leaving a comment below.
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