How Does Chocolate Cause or Affect Acne?

A lot of people of people have told me, in the past, that diet has nothing to do with acne. They’ve also told me that sweets, such as chocolate, don’t affect your acne either. I believed them for the longest time.

But are they right?

Do they know what they’re talking about?

In this article I’m going to tell you what’s REALLY going on.

Please read this short article from acne.about.com about whether or not chocolate causes acne and then my commentary afterward…

***Question: Does Eating Chocolate Cause Acne?***

***Answer:

Good news for all you chocoholics: Eating chocolate does not cause pimples. Skin care experts agree that acne is not caused by any specific food, including French fries, candy, soda, or potato chips.

The real acne causes are a buildup of dead skin cells within the pore, an excess of skin oil (called sebum), and a proliferation of acne-causing bacteria. None of these factors are triggered by the foods we eat.

Probably the biggest myth of all is that eating greasy foods causes your skin to produce more oil. Greasy foods, while not really good for your health, will not cause oily skin or produce pimples. In fact, hormonal changes within the body have the greatest impact on sebum production. The predisposition toward oily skin can also be hereditary. So if your parents have oily skin, you probably will too.

A lot of attention has been given to one study, which seems to suggest a correlation between diet and acne development. Proponents of this study say a more natural diet consisting of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, and lean proteins create a healthy body, in turn creating healthy, clear skin. Even this study did not link any one food to acne breakouts, but rather suggests that a nutritious diet can help the skin stay healthy too. More research needs to be done to prove a definitive link between diet and acne development.

If a particular food seems to cause more breakouts for you, avoid eating it. But remember, there is no direct link between any specific food to the development of pimples. So go ahead and enjoy that piece of chocolate or order of fries (in moderation, of course). Your skin will be no worse for it the next day.

-http://acne.about.com/od/acnefaqs/f/chocolate.htm ***

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Ray:

BULLSHIT. There’s so much more they’re not saying. The article above was taken from acne.about.com.

It’s Okay, it’s true that chocolate does not CAUSE acne but I think we’re missing a major point here because it does AGGRAVATE your acne, if you already have it.

What I’m saying is this, if you don’t have an acne problem, you’re not going to suddenly get acne just because you ate a ton of chocolate.  Studies have not or NOT YET concluded that there is a direct correlation between chocolate and acne.

HOWEVER, if you do have acne and you decide to scarf down some M&Ms, Snickers, and then veer off into the magical land of Halloween candy bars and chocolately goodness, be prepared to see some nasty side effects because chocolate will affect your acne!

At this point you must be asking why or you might be saying, “I don’t believe you because OTHER people are saying that it doesn’t affect my face.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, in my life, that chocolate or sweets don’t affect acne. And to them I want to ask, “So then please tell me why I’ve had so many break outs every time I eat certain foods, particularly chocolate or sweets?” Don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed the connection either because it’s extra confusing when most people are telling you there is no connection, yet CLEARLY in your very own experience, there is a difference.

Especially after I started making food logs and keeping track of what I eat, I started noticing that there was a connection.

Much later, after conducting tons of research, I learned that the sugar added in chocolate causes inflammation at a cellular level as mentioned by the Nicholas Perricone, the author of the Perricone Promise. If you eat sweets and your body has trouble stabilizing blood sugar level or is in a compromised state (as is probably true if you have acne), your blood sugar level will spike. In order to compensate, your pancreas then produces insulin to help control your blood sugar level and bring it back down to normal again. If this happens over and over again, eventually permanent damage can happen and certain organs will never function as well as they would before.

If this happens, then the entire body’s function is compromised.

So the moral of the story is this: chocolate does affect acne if you have acne already.

So what you’re saying is… I can never have chocolate again? That’s not what I’m saying. You can have chocolate after you get your body back on track again. And if you’re like me, having a sweet tooth was what actually got you into this mess in the first place.

I used to binge on sweets (because somehow I just don’t gain weight) and eat tons of pasta, rice, and carbs. Add that to the wrong combination of skin type, diet, and genetics and BAM, I had the perfect recipe for acne.

So if you’ve learned anything from this debate or this article, it’s that certain foods will help you and certain foods won’t. I’m not saying that chocolate is not good for you and there are no benefits to such a food because there are many studies pointing towards the positives to chocolate. All I’m trying to tell you is that, for now, your body is struggling to process chocolate and sweets. You need to control this sweet tooth of yours and get yourself back into a place where you CAN eat chocolate and not have it affect your acne.

And that’s the goal, we’re retraining our bodies to get to a healthy place, where we can be one of those people who can freely eat chocolate and not have it affect our acne. Why? Because we won’t have acne anymore =).