Science tells us that your skin is pretty much what you eat. You can eat foods that stop cancer — with orange peels as a surprising albeit mostly inedible example. You can also eat foods that can make pretty much your every skin concern much worse. Here are eight foods that are bad for your skin.
White Bread Increases Acne
Any and all high glycemic foods like white bread, pasta and cakes have all been found to be linked to an increase in acne, according to a recent Australian study. This is because these foods raise your insulin levels and elevated insulin growth has been tied to acne in many studies, according to the Journal of Dermatology. Your alternative here should be whole wheat bread which is much healthier in general and has anti-inflammatory properties.
Alcohol Dries Out Your Skin
Unfortunately, not only does alcohol damage your skin but it can do so in several ways. All alcohol dehydrates your skin and what this means is that your skin will appear less fresh the next morning, according to one dermatologist. However, not all alcoholic drinks are equally bad for your skin. One expert recommends clear shots of gin, vodka and tequila because they contain the least additives or other harmful ingredients for your skin.
Sweet Candy Causes Acne, Dull Skin and Wrinkles
The main reason that candy hurts your skin is that its essential ingredient sugar hurts your skin. Its been known for some time that high blood sugar can damage your skin. In fact, any food that has lots of sugars will probably affect your skin adversely. Sugar rich candy hurts your skin by damaging collagen and elastin. These are the fibers that makes your skin firm and youthful. The candy’s ingredients causes your skin to become dry, which leads to premature aging and awful sagging skin features. Keep in mind that this doesn’t include all candy as dark chocolate actually helps the skin. But mostly candy is bad.
Salt Makes Your Face Swell and Aggravates Acne
Salt, also a central ingredient in alcohol and processed foods that makes them bad as well, causes skin tissue to swell and makes your face puffy and unhealthy looking, according to one dermatologist. Salt is especially bad in high doses, which is also why fast food is on this list as well. High doses of salt are also known to aggravate acne.
Rice Cakes Cause Blood Sugar to Spike
While there are a lot of foods that are bad for the skin, the real problem are a few bad ingredients that cause your blood sugar levels to spike. Or foods that simply metabolize in a way that cause your sugar levels to rise. Turns out that rice cakes cause your blood sugar to soar. When this happens they suppress wrinkle fighting proteins like Collagen. Rice cakes were once thought to be a fat fighting Wonder snack, but it not only makes your skin worse but could make your diabetes worse, which is a much more serious problem.
So Called “Healthy” Cereals Aren’t
The problem with processed foods in America, and this has also been linked to both the obesity and diabetes epidemic, is that they’re stuffed full of both salt and sugar. Salt and sugar cause all kinds of problems including acne and dry dehydrated skin. There are lots of healthier breakfast foods (such as Bob’s Red Mill Organic High Fiber Pancake mix and sausage patties made from soy among others…) but you might want to run them through something called the “glycemic index” first.
Skim Milk Causes Inflammation and Breakouts
While it may be true that milk does a body good it apparently isn’t all that good for the skin, especially skim milk. Milk is full of growth hormones and growth factors that remain in the product even after pasteurization. Those growth products can raise your inflammation and your oil production, which leads to icky and disgusting breakouts, according to many teen girls who talk that way.
Delicious Greasy Fast Food Causes Blemishes
American fast food, also tied to skyrocketing diabetes and obesity rates, isn’t very good for your skin. That’s probably because most fast food, excluding apple wedges from McDonalds, are known to have ingredients that cause bad skin at every level: lots of sugar and salt. High levels of sugar and salt cause all kinds of skin problems including an increase in acne lesions. Really you should just eat less of it because fast food creates all kinds of more serious health problems but, hey, it also makes you less pretty. Priorities.
Consume the Food That Helps your Skin
While this list is very depressing, keep in mind that there are many foods that are actually good for your skin and are actually good to eat, although probably not as fun as cheesecake and alcohol. Some of those healthy skin foods include green teas, olive oil and dark chocolate that actually improve the health of your skin. Act accordingly. If you would like to learn more about skin healthy foods and foods you should avoid you should contact a top dermatologist in Summit for a consultation.