Diet and Your Skin

Does what you eat affect your skin?

Of course. Your skin is a representation of what is going on inside your body.

As they say in computer programming, “Garbage in, Garbage Out”.

The Pearls and Reasons

1. Give Your Skin the Resources it Needs to Start Healing

As an acupuncturist and herbalist, I have seen daily, for over a decade, that the body is an amazing healing machine. In many cases, it just needs a gentle prompt or some assistance to heal itself.

That does not mean that all illnesses and skin conditions can be cured. Some things like psoriasis or eczema might have a genetic component that predisposes an individual to symptoms. But, those symptoms can often be quieted or sometimes even appear to vanish with proper care.

Giving the body the proper care includes providing it with the raw materials and building blocks needed for all cellular and organ function. Those raw materials and building blocks are obtained by eating. If you do not give your body the nutrition it needs to perform its various functions, your skin suffers. Often when nutrition is not good, the first place it shows up in is the skin, hair and nails. You must eat well to give your skin, hair and nails a fighting chance.

2. Eat “Food”

That’s easy, right? Maybe not. It depends on what you call food.

As Michael Pollan points out in his recent book, “In Defense of Food”, much of what we eat in the ‘Standard American Diet’ (the abbreviation is ironically SAD) is not really food, but instead is manufactured, food-like substances. It is full of extra calories that are empty of nutrition. Many of the cheap ingredients are actually pro-inflammatory and make it harder for your body to bring down inflammation in your skin. This type of manufactured food-like substance is a mostly new (50+ years) phenomenon driven by business and profit and it is not what the human body is adapted to after thousands of years of simple combinations of plants and meats.

When he recommends eating “food”, it means eating things that are recognizable as coming from nature; fruits, vegetables, meat, fish. It means avoiding things that are highly processed and things that your grandparents would not recognize as food. “Real food” is what the human body is designed to eat. When we eat mostly real food it makes it so much easier for our bodies and skin to heal.

Do not take my word for it. Try to eat “food” for a month and watch what happens to your skin. When you make it so much easier for your body to get the nutrition it needs, it makes it much easier for your body to calm your eczema, or soothe your psoriasis, or minimize your blemishes.

3. Eat Really Good Food

If you already eat well or can see the common-sense truth in the above section, then you are ready for the next step. You can supercharge this idea of eating real food by going the extra mile and choosing natural and organic food.

Much of our nation’s meat, vegetable and fruit are raised by industrial farming methods that strip our food of its nutrients and health benefits. Crops are raised by the miracle of science with powerful chemical fertilizers on land stripped of nutrients. Plants are genetically modified to contain their own pesticides and grow straight and tall to maximize yields and profit, but not nutrition. Industrial farmed animals are raised in crowded and inhumane conditions and fed manufactured foods that make them grow large quickly, but also cause them health problems. This provides us with meat from unhealthy animals. The conditions and the health problems of the animals often make antibiotics and other medicines necessary, and this is also delivered to us in the meat we get.

Organically raised foods rely on natural practices and result in healthier, more nutritional plants and animals. Plants raised organically have higher vitamin and mineral contents than industrial farmed equivalents. Animals that are raised naturally and organically eat foods that are natural to them. Farming methods maintain the health of the animals without the ongoing use of medicines. By providing your body with more nutrients and healthier food, your general health and skin can only benefit.

4. Address Allergies or Sensitivities

Many skin conditions flare up episodically. One of the reasons may be allergies or sensitivities to foods. Does your eczema flare when you eat products with peanuts? Do you see your psoriasis get worse when your stomach is off from something you ate? Do you get an itchy rash when you eat certain fruits? You may be allergic to something in your diet?

If you suspect you are reacting to something you are eating, there are a number of possible solutions:

• Get allergy testing. See an allergist and find out what to avoid.
• Do an elimination diet. Make your diet extremely simple. Add suspect foods back in very gradually to determine what is causing reactivity.
• Eat simply as described above. If you do, when you have skin flare ups it will be much easier to figure out what caused it.

TCM Diet Therapy for Specific Conditions

Traditional Chinese Medicine has been around for a few thousand years. During that time, practitioners have observed that certain foods seem to either help or harm particular skin conditions. The theory is based on the observations that each food had thermal properties and also that skin conditions can also be categorized as ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ in nature. A few obvious examples are: hot peppers are hot natured and watermelon is cold natured. Burning swollen conditions in the skin like herpes zoster are hot in nature and conditions like Raynaud’s are cold in nature. This is a very wide and deep subject and a few good books on the subject are cited below. Here are a few general tips for specific skin conditions to give you an idea of the theory:

• People with Reynaud’s and other skin conditions worsened by exposure to cold should minimize intake of ‘cold’ foods like raw vegetables and fruit, cold drinks. They should instead focus on getting warming foods like nutritious hearty soups, things cooked with warming spices like ginger, pepper, etc which warm them up.
• People with skin disorders like herpes zoster, or other conditions characterized by lesions and vesicles with itching and exudation (oozing) should avoid hot foods. This is because these skin conditions are ‘hot’ in nature and adding hot foods like chili, onion, lamb, cheese, butter, alcohol and cigarettes can feed the fire. They should choose cooling foods like raw vegetables, fruits, light broths, etc.
• People with acne, rosacea, or seborrhea eczema should avoid spicy, greasy and sweet foods (especially chocolate).
• People with psoriasis should avoid spicy and stimulating food like seafood or alcohol.

Further Reading — Good Books on TCM Diet Therapy

• Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition, Paul Pitchford, North Atlantic Books, ISBN: 9781556434303
  An encyclopedic tome on TCM diet therapy. Wide-ranging but a good index makes it manageable and very informative.
• Chinese Natural Cures: Traditional Methods for Remedies and Preventions, Henry C Lu, Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, ISBN: 9781579120566
  A much more concise introduction to TCM food therapy. Very accessible intro with recommendations for a variety of ailments.

Links for Readers Who Want More

About eating “food”, Michael Pollan’s Website. This is the author of “In Defense of Food” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Both books are very insightful and convincing. For anyone who would like to clean up their diet, after reading these books, it would be hard not to make changes. Highly recommended and the site has many interesting related links:

http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php

Still not sure about the benefits of organic fruits, vegetables, meats? Here is a page with a list of studies that show the benefits of organic over conventional. The page is hosted by the Organic Trade Association, so I am sure they have a bias, but it is a good starting point for looking at what studies have been done:

http://www.ota.com/organic/benefits/nutrition.html

Want to Know More About an Elimination Diet? Here is a good intro from the George Mateljan Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to making the world a healthier place by providing information about using food to promote health. The rest of the site is also worth checking out and is dedicated to spreading the word about the “World’s Healthiest Foods”.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=diet&dbid=7

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