Does Sugar Cause Skin Breakouts?
Study Links Sugar with Acne, Skin Lesions, Breakouts, Oily Skin
Mar 9, 2009
Does the amount of sugar in your diet affect what's on your face? A twelve-week study in 2007 set out to determine the answer, and the study's finding suggest that the amount of sugar in food – or at least, a meal's glycemic index – does have an impact on hormone levels, weight loss and gain, and on facial acne.
The Debate: Sugar and Acne
The subject has been contested for years, with holistic practitioners and naturopaths insisting that foods like chocolate, refined sugar, and artificial ingredients cause acne breakouts, while doctors and dermatologists maintain that diet has virtually no effect on your skin.
Now, experts are saying that it is not sugar in and of itself that may affect your skin, but the hormones secreted by your body in response to excess sugar. Preliminary research shows that a high-glycemic diet may create more acne, skin oils, and breakouts than a comparatively low-glycemic, high-protein diet.
What is Glycemic Index?
The glycemic index is a relative scale in which foods are ranked based on how their carbohydrates affect blood sugar.
Refined white sugar, the food that is most rapidly dumped into the bloodstream as glucose, has a glycemic index of 100. Every other food is ranked somewhere between 0 and 100, depending on how quickly the sugars in that food are converted to glucose, triggering the release of hormones (like insulin) that convert blood glucose to energy storage.
The following examples give some idea of the average glycemic index of a few common carbohydrate-rich foods:
- Apple – 38
- Banana – 55
- Honey – 58
- Agave nectar – 11
- Unsweetened grape juice - 48
- Cheerios – 74
- Bagel – 72
- White French bread (baguette) – 95
- Hamburger bun - 61
- Whole wheat pita – 57
- French fries – 75
- Boiled potatoes – range from 60-101
High-protein foods are low-glycemic, and as such they are recommended in order to moderate the impact of high-glycemic foods and to replace high-glycemic ingredients in the diet. Glycemic index is often used to encourage weight loss and prevent sugar-related conditions such as diabetes, insulin-resistance, and hypoglycemia.
Research Findings on Sugar, Diet and Acne
A group of dermatologists investigated the connection between sugary, high-glycemic foods and the hormones produced by the body in processing them – hormones that might be linked to oily outbreaks and skin acne.
For test subjects, they used people whose normal food choices were from a "conventional," high-glycemic diet. Half of the test subjects were switched to more protein and a lower glycemic-load diet – fish, meat, whole grains and fruit - while the remainder were kept to their normal foods, including sugary cereals, pasta and white bread.
After twelve weeks, the subjects on a low-glycemic diet were leaner, had lower levels of androgens (hormones linked with skin outbreaks) and had noticeably less facial acne – twice the difference of the control group.
Although there's still a ways to go in definitively linking sugar with skin acne, the data is in – and for those who want clear, beautiful skin, white bread, sugar and potatoes are out.
Sources
O'Connor, Anahad, "The Claim: Sugar in the Diet Can Lead to Acne," The New York Times, February 23, 2009.
Smith, Robyn N. et al, "The effect of a high-protein, low glycemic–load diet versus a conventional, high glycemic–load diet on biochemical parameters associated with acne vulgaris: A randomized, investigator-masked, controlled trial," Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, 57:247-256, August 2007.
