Skip to main content

How I Finally Got Good Skin: Mostly Diet

Someone asked me today what I used on my skin, saying that it looked good and that she'd like to improve her complexion. It's a question I never thought I'd hear back when I was trying everything available for acne, a time that covered most of my life.

Partly, it's good genes. Except for acne, we have good skin in my family and tend to look younger than we are as long as we don't smoke.

In my case, I had to change my diet and take supplements to (mostly) clear up my skin and make it softer and more resilient to abrasions and sunburn. I don't get razor burn now. Even with my fair skin, I don't use sunscreen anymore. It took a few years on the diet, but now, except for my shoulders, my skin doesn't burn under the Colorado sun. My diet is mostly low-carb paleo and I take vitamins D3, K2, and GNC Hair, Skin & Nails vitamins. I also eat half a pound of liver and two cans of sardines per week.

Why this regimen? I started this a few years ago to stop getting cavities. (My teeth had already improved on a regular low-carb diet. Coincidentally, my acquaintance also mentioned she had dental problems.) Most readers are familiar with Dr. Weston A Price, the dentist who studied people with healthy teeth but no dental care on traditional diets. There were a variety of diets, as you'd expect comparing food from such diverse places as Switzerland, Australia and South America, but they were all very low in (or free of) flour and sugar. Grains were soaked and sprouted to reduce antinutrients; everyone ate meat, and nobody avoided fat. Dr. Price identified a nutrient across the cultures and identified it as "activator X," which is now known to be vitamin K2.

What does this have to do with good skin? People following traditional diets and lifestyles were free of most modern health problems, including acne. This, without dentists or dermatologists. Why not imitate them and add supplements to make up for any deficiencies? Since I don't many eat foods rich in vitamin K2 (natto, cheese and insects), I take K2 pills.

Modern research says yes, menaquinone [a K vitamin] fights skin aging and the emergence of wrinkles by protecting the elasticity of the skin in the exact same way it safeguards the elasticity of arteries and veins...This uncovers yet another antiaging function for vitamin K2: preventing the mineralization of skin tissue to keep your complexion firm and resilient.(1)

Why liver? It's full of vitamin A, a nutrient that's so beneficial for acne that the medication Retin-A is made from it. (Check out the nutrients in a quarter pound of beef liver.)

I had to give up most dairy after finding that cheese makes my skin break out. Cream and sour cream are supposedly all dairy fat (it's likely that the proteins are what causes skin problems), but the list of ingredients on the cartons say otherwise.

The sardines are full of phosphorus, another mineral Dr. Price found was important to dental health.

I also think a low-carb, and therefore, high-fat diet helped my skin. I noticed right away after I started LC that my skin was softer and stronger and I didn't as many skin care products.

As to skin products, I use mild exfoliants every night to clear away dead skin cells. Every morning, I use a serum/moisturizer combo for my face, and another specially for the skin around the eyes. I bought some ridiculously expensive skin care products on vacation in San Diego, but I'm replacing those with Mineral Fusion products.

For further reading: http://relievemypain.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-i-conquered-acne-with-diet.html

  1. Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox by Dr. Kate Rheum-Bleue, John Wiley & Sons Canada, 2012. Page 115.

Comments

Galina L. said…
I am also asked from time to time about my good skin. It is partially genetic, of course, but high-saturated fats diet without much carbs makes a big difference. It is also a way to help with a Rosacea, which is often un-diagnosed. Most adults have pimples due to it, and it looks like Rosacea is at least partially an autoimmune condition.
Lori Miller said…
The fat also helps you absorb vitamins A and K2.
Diet plays such an important part in our well being.

I for one have always avoided expensive lotions especially those with additives. The cheaper ranges I found worked ok for me BUT more importantly a good diet, plenty of sleep and moderate exercise.

All the best Jan
Lori Miller said…
If I had to pick one thing for my skin, it would be good diet, not skin care products. Working up a sweat seems to clean out the pores and make your skin glow more than anything in a bottle.
Angel said…
What K2 vitamin supplement do you use?
Lori Miller said…
Source Naturals.

Popular posts from this blog

Dana Carpender's Podcast; Dr. Davis on YouTube; Labor Day Sales

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

Fasting blood sugar & insulin have crept up!

It's pretty bad when even conventional medicine thinks your blood sugar is high. I had lab tests done last week, as I do every year, and saw things were going in the wrong direction. Photo from Pixabay . Uh-oh.  Ideal blood sugar is about 70-90. Your blood sugar can be high because you're stressed or ill, but I felt OK. I can't blame it on cortisol, which was smack in the middle of the normal range. And my A1c, which reflects blood sugar over the past few months, shows that whatever is going on has been happening for a while. My insulin is more than double what it should be. Oddly, my triglycerides, which typically indicate carb consumption, were good.  I don't have an explanation for the triglycerides. I should have suspected something was wrong, though. I've felt very tired and a little sad for the past few months. Unlike many people with higher than ideal blood sugar and insulin, I had only gained about three pounds.  Regardless of my good weight and triglyceride...

Interview: The Microbiome's Effect on Almost Everything

Mark L. Cannon, DDS, MS joins Bret Weinstein of the Darkhorse Podcast for a discussion about the oral microbiome and its downstream effects on everything from acne to Alzheimer’s. Dr. Cannon is a pediatric dentist and professor of otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine). It's an hour and 44 minutes, but well worth your time. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkOgCXiMeE

Avoiding a Nightmare by Using Math

The answer lies in trigonometry. -Sherlock Holmes Don't worry if you never learned trigonometry--the answers here lie in arithmetic. Medical test results often come back positive or negative, as if the result were a certainty. Of course, there is the accuracy, but if the accuracy is 99% or so, what does that really mean? That you should get your affairs in order? Before you call your probate attorney, let's take an example from the book Calculated Risks by Gerd Gigerenzer. Let's say you're a 40-something year old woman with no symptoms of breast cancer. You have a positive mammogram. What are the odds you have breast cancer? Using some assumptions about test accuracy and rates of disease based on real data, the odds that you'd have breast cancer are one in eleven according to Gigerenzer. (If you were way off, don't feel bad--most of the physicians Gigerenzer tested were way off, too--and they had the data in front of them. Not that that's comforting in every...

Lousy Mood? It Could be the Food

Here's a funny AMV(1) on what it's like to be depressed, apathetic and overly sensitive. Note: explicit (but funny) lyrics in the video. Hearing this song brought a startling realization: I used to be emo, but with normal clothes. Sulking, sobbing and writing poetry were my hobbies. When I was a kid, my mother said that she wouldn't know what to do to punish me if I had done something wrong. And yet things got worse. Over a two-week period in 1996, my best friend moved away, I lost my job and broke up with my boyfriend. I lost my appetite and lived on a daily bagel, cream cheese and a Coke for the next few months. I had tried counseling, and didn't find it helpful; in fact, I found reviving painful memories was pointless. Not thinking about them, on the other hand, worked wonders. Later on, so did studying philosophy and learning to think through emotions instead of just riding through them. But what's blown away all the techniques is diet. Since I s...