Acne and nutrition: hypotheses, myths and facts

Abstract

Acne is an inflammatory and multifactorial skin disease. Different external and internal factors, including air pollution, aggressive skincare products, medication, mechanical, hormonal and familial factors and, more recently, lifestyle and stress, have been suggested as having an impact on acne. Moreover, for many years nutrition was believed to cause or worsen acne. Over the last decades, however, it has become a dermatological doctrine that there is no direct association between diet and acne. Even if recent research has allowed to identify certain nutritional elements and behaviour that may impact on acne, including the excessive intake of dairy products and hyperglycaemic food, modern lifestyle nutrition, obesity and eating disorders, knowledge about the role of nutrition in the physiopathology of acne still remains sparse and hypotheses and myths continue to dominate the debate. Thus, further clinical and translational research is necessary to investigate and confirm the association between nutrition and acne.

Reply to comments made by M. Donnarumma et al. Comment on “Acne and nutrition: hypotheses, myths and facts” published by our expert group in 2018

“…Consequently, onychomatricoma is often misdiagnosed as onychomycosis, which deprives the patient of appropriate treatment for onychomatricoma. 2 A 47-year-old man presented with a thickened and yellowish right hallux toenail for 5 years (Fig. 1a).…”

Determination of the Effect of Diet on the Development and Severity of Acne Vulgaris by Using Insulin Index and Glycemic Index

“…In these studies, the relationship between glycemic index-based food con- sumption and AV has been investigated mostly regarding fish meat, milk/dairy products, and chocolate. [20][21][22] There are conflicting results in different studies on the effect of BMI on AV development as in certain other skin diseases. [23][24][25][26] In this study, there is no statistically significant difference in mean BMI between the patients with AV and the control group.…”

Acne from the young patient's perspective

“…Acne is a chronic disease which, when cases are more severe, may lead to permanent scarring and permanent disfigurement and, even without leading to scars, it may impact patients profoundly, leading to negative health outcomes and long‐term psychological comorbidities . While the disease is well‐known globally, it is not always understood well by the patients and there are still numerous beliefs and myths about its origins, duration, factors that trigger the disease and about its management …”