<a href="https://health.kporia.com/eating-stress-relieving-foods-can-help-lower-anxiety/” title=”Eating Stress-Relieving Foods Can Help Lower Anxiety”>Eating a Mediterranean diet has been linked to lower likelihood of acne in adults.
According to new King’s College London research, adults who followed a Mediterranean-style diet, rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats, were less likely to report acne, particularly for women. In men, diets that were lower in carbohydrates and higher in animal-based foods were linked to a greater likelihood of acne.
The study also found that cooked vegetables, cheese and yoghurt associate with lower likelihood of acne, whereas skimmed milk and milk-based desserts were linked to a greater likelihood of acne.
While common in adolescence, many people go on to experience acne into adulthood, impacting about 1 in 10 adults in the UK. The condition is more common in women, suggesting hormones might also influence acne. Both genetics and the environment are thought to play a role, but there is limited evidence on the link between diet and adult acne.
The new study, which addresses this gap in the research, analyses data from 228,757 participants in the UK biobank – a large, population health study. Researchers identified 1,603 participants as having current acne using recent acne diagnoses recorded in health data or reported by participants.
Lead author Bochen Li, PhD student at King’s College London, said: “Our study aimed to examine whether overall diet quality and specific food groups are associated with adult acne. We hope that the findings support the future development of dietary guidance for those with the condition.
“Our exploratory findings suggest that diet may relate to acne differently in women and men. We think this is a particularly interesting finding, as it could be an important step towards more targeted dietary guidance in the future. These differences may be partly linked to biology, including hormones, but they may also reflect differences in eating habits, symptom reporting and healthcare use between women and men. Further studies are now needed to confirm these patterns.
“The differences we observed between dairy products were also interesting. From an epidemiological perspective, our findings suggest that dairy should not be treated as a single category when studying acne. Fermented dairy products such as yoghurt, and cheese in some analyses, showed different patterns from skimmed milk and milk-based desserts. This may help future research better understand how different dairy products relate to acne.”
Corresponding author Professor Wendy Hall added: “Our findings suggest that diet and adult acne are linked, and that it is not as simple as just avoiding dairy or sugary foods. Adults with acne tend to have less healthy diets overall, with some evidence that dietary associations may differ between men and women. We also found that different dairy foods showed quite different associations with acne. This study cannot tell us that diet causes or prevents acne, but it gives us important clues about the dietary patterns we should now test in clinical trials.
“Taking this research to the next stage will help us understand whether a healthy diet that includes foods such as cheese and yoghurt could help reduce the burden of a skin condition that can have a profound impact on people’s wellbeing.”
The research forms part of longstanding research by King’s College London into diet and health. Recent studies at King’s have established a link between the Mediterranean diet and healthy ageing, and conditions such as gum disease.
This study was published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.
In this story
Bochen Li
Professor Wendy Hall
Professor of Nutritional Sciences
- Health
