lactose intolerance and acne?
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free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:15 am

Hi everyone!

So, I recently went for a "food sensitivity" testing from my local holistic health center and discovered that I have developed a moderate sensitivity to milk products (notably the lactose).

During most of my university years I did not consume much milk (and for a period was vegan so did not consume ANY dairy products) and was told that my body has become less effective in producing the necessary digestive enzymes... and therefore not effectively digesting milk products...

I think there may be a link here to my new month-long (and still going strong) outbreak of acne on my chin (an area where food sensitivities express themselves on your face - as per my dermalogica face mapper).

so after this long intro my question is - if I take lactaid (or some similar product) will it help to reduce my acne (if it is in fact resulting from my new sensitivity/intolerance to milk products?)

I was simply advised to eliminate my dairy consumption (unless I wanted to pay more $$$ for a nutrition consult) and not given any other tips on how to cope with this!
considering that I am a vetgetarian dairy is an important component to my protein consumption (I do consume soy products, but I just can't give up cheese!!!) I am hoping that I can come up with a happy-medium where I can still eat dairy products without ravaging my face!

TIA!

sorry for being so long-winded!

free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 8:49 am

Are you having problems with all dairy products? How about substituting with Rice Milk products?

free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 10:53 am

are you allergic to dairy products, or lactose intolerant? If you are intolerant, I would think taking the supplement would help, cause then your body can break down the milk products. If you are allergic, it won't matter, because it isn't that your body can't break them down, its that you have an inflammatory response to them.

free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 11:02 am

hi elizasue!

yeah, intolerant isn't the word I was quite looking for... but I couldn't find another way to articulate what the food sensitivity issue was (I should have taken notes while at my appointment!) but inflammatory response is a more accurate term to describe my issue...

I was told that lactose is often the issue of such sensitivity... so there would be other components to dairy that I may be reacting too?

is there anything I can take to help reduce an inflammatory reaction to milk? or do I need to just stick with alternatives?

thanks!

free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 12:16 pm

Hi lulabelle -
OK, so if you are allergic, then avoidance is the best option. Sorry!
Your body is mounting an inflammatory response against the proteins in milk and other dairy products. My sister had a similar allergy in her late 20s - very traumatic for her because she is very fair and has a pretty flawless complexion(no fair!) and never had any acne issues. Her allergy was so severe that she would get these horrible boils if she even ate baked goods that contained milk. She cut all dairy(and I mean ALL - going to a restaurant with her was amusing because she quized the staff on dairy content of everything!) out of her diet for about 2 years, and then gradually started adding it back in. It worked - she is now able to consume dairy in moderate amounts - I think she still can react if she overdoes it.
Not what you want to hear, I know. But there are good alternatives - soy milk isn't bad on cereal, they make soy yogurt, and I LOVE chocolate soy milk for a treat!
HTH

Sun Oct 15, 2006 1:55 pm

I've been having acne problems in the past few years and only recently I was able to get rid of them to the point where I only break out before my period. Part of the reason for my acne going I way I believe was that I reduced drinking and eating dairy products.
I heard that the reason why some people break out because of dairy are the hormones that are found in these products.

free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:06 pm

lulabelle, I am sorry to hear that you have this reaction to dairy as I also have the same issues. I cut out ALL dairy about 2 years ago or so and noticed a difference in my acne, eczema and generally itchy skin. I LOVED cheese and am a big italian food fan so it has been really hard to stay away from dairy. But I am willing to make the sacrafice to have better skin. I love my soy milk but soy cheese and yogurt... I'm still getting used to. Soy cheese is just not even close to the same as true cheese (sorry to disappoint!).

You know, along similar lines I also have found that staying away from wheat helps too. I've been a bit lazy and my willpower has been weak lately so my wheat consumption has been elevated. As a result I have had this horrible episode of cysts/boils on my chin. My 5th in the last month is healing right now. Was anything said about you having a sensitivity to wheat at all?

elizasue wrote:

She cut all dairy(and I mean ALL - going to a restaurant with her was amusing because she quized the staff on dairy content of everything!) out of her diet for about 2 years, and then gradually started adding it back in.
HTH

Was this a recommended treatment?

Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:09 pm

Vana wrote:

I've been having acne problems in the past few years and only recently I was able to get rid of them to the point where I only break out before my period. Part of the reason for my acne going I way I believe was that I reduced drinking and eating dairy products.
I heard that the reason why some people break out because of dairy are the hormones that are found in these products.

I just realize my spelling mistake...I meant to write .....going away.....

free skin care · Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:20 pm

hi amnis!!

the woman who tested me did not say anything about wheat to me... although I have heard that it can also be a cause of acne in some people.

I'll cut out dairy for the next month and see what happens! but once egg-nog comes into the stores, I can't make any promises (oh and that reminds me... christmas ice cream - or president's choice chocolate fudge crackle for any Canadian's who are reading this post!!!)

I am also a huge fan of soy milk in general (and soy meats!) but sometimes they just aren't as good as the real thing. but I guess when it comes down to my skin, I am willing to make this sacrifice (although I hold do hope that I will be able to slowly re-introduct it back into my diet eventually!!!)
this wasn't advised by the woman who tested me... but I will definantly try it out!

thanks for your responses guys!!

Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:25 pm

I have Celiac Disease in which I can't eat gluten {wheat, rye or barley} and I'm also very sensitive to Soy & Milk products.

Basically with Celiac, it's an auto-immune disease in which the body attacks itself if gluten is digested. My digestive system is really tricky and just can't break down even legal foods for me very well.

What I've noticed is, if I eat gluten or Diary or anything that is hard for my digestive system to break down, I break out a lot. You can usually notice if it's a digestive acne outbreak if your cheek/chin area breaks out. Diary usually breaks out out in this area if you're sensitive. If you have a nut allergy, you can often break out on your neck and under your chin.

If you have toxins in your body that can't be broken down, it has to show up somewhere and usually it comes out through your pores. If you do have a dairy sensitivity and are still using it and you're breaking out, your acne is your bodys way of saying "I have something inside that I can't break down."

I would suggest going without dairy for four weeks which might be hard but see how you feel; not just with your skin but with your overall health. Be really religous about it too; don't "cheat" - you want to clean your body out to see what's going on.

What I've noticed is that being without gluten or other allergy things is that I've become WAY more sensitive to it all now. So perhaps before it would take a few days to react, now I react within an hour because my body has learned to not deal with it so it kind of shocks my body when I get gluten now. My skin also gets 10X worse because my body isn't used to the toxins as much.

Do a google search for dairy free living or casein allergies and you'll find a lot of information.

free skin care · Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:50 am

I get breakouts on my cheeks if I have dairy. My facialist identified it and she's right.
Much better if i only have soy in my tea..but it's hard..Duchy of Cornwall organic milk is soooooo nice...

free skin care · Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:28 pm

I too have had a recent issue with terrible acne breakouts that I had never experienced when i was younger. In my last year of uni I started feeling extreme discomfort whenever I would eat and I was generally just feeling and looking awful. Finally I decided that I would go to a naturalpathic doctor because all MD's were unable to help. She put me on a very strict diet and indicated that the most common allergens and sensitivities that ppl have are to wheat, nuts, dairy, soy and nightshade vegetables (like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant). It worked wonders by simply cutting all of this out, but it was very difficult to keep up when I was busy with school and then travelling through europe and as a result after having cut it all out when I consumed all of these things I broke out in cystic acne that covered my entire face!!

Anyways, long story, but I have cut out all tomatoes and wheat from my diet and have been clear ever since. Cutting out wheat also means cutting out gin, vodka and beer! Following this diet has done wonders for my skin and whenever I do happen to slip up within an hour i'm itchy and my stomach hurts and I break out in cysts on my cheeks within a day or two.

free skin care · Thu Aug 16, 2007 8:51 pm

Vana wrote:

I've been having acne problems in the past few years and only recently I was able to get rid of them to the point where I only break out before my period. Part of the reason for my acne going I way I believe was that I reduced drinking and eating dairy products.
I heard that the reason why some people break out because of dairy are the hormones that are found in these products.

Does it help with organic milk? I dont know if my acne is associated with diary products, but I rarely eat cheese and occassionaly drink milk.

free skin care · Thu Aug 16, 2007 9:41 pm

gracedhy, try cutting milk out of your diet for awhile and see what happens. My skin has been really clear for the last few months and I've been contributing it to the changes I made to my routine since I've joined this forum about 6 months ago. BUT, one other change I made around that time was to eliminate milk from my diet. I did this because my baby has a severe allergy to milk protein and since I am breastfeeding, he has a bad reaction if I drink milk. I recall reading of others that contribute their clear skin to removing dairy from their diets, so that could very well be why I've had such good skin lately.

I suggest you try the rice milk as Yen suggested. We haven't been able to even bring milk into the house because the baby gets hives, so we've been buying rice milk for baking. My teenage son will not drink it plain, but he will put chocolate syrup in it, and also doesn't mind it for cereal. He normally drank 2-3 full bags of milk a day and had bad acne on his cheeks. Since we've been buying the rice milk his skin has looked great also.

free skin care · Fri Aug 17, 2007 10:39 am

You know, I was recently chatting with a coworker who is a fellow skincare forum addict (she's an MUA gall, herself) and she said that she thought the reason milk was hard on acne was because of the hormones it contains. Even if you buy organic milk from cows that haven't received any additional hormones, the very fact of a cow lactating means it has normal post-pregnancy hormones coursing through its body - just like us humans need in order to breast-feed - and so those are present to some degree in the milk. So it seemed from her explanation that the very fact of an adult creature drinking milk meant for a baby was the problem, since we're not geared to receive those hormones in our system.

I'm not sure how accurate or scientific this was, but it makes intuitive sense to me - a lot of folks who are vegan have pointed out that it's not "natural" for a grown-up creature to be drinking "breast milk", from any animal. Even though humans have over time developed the enzymes necessary to break these compounds down, it still makes sense to me that it might not be a 100% natural thing for our adult bodies to try and process.

Still, I love me some cheese, and I'm very prone to hormonal breakouts around my chin which I've been told can be made worse by dairy, but I find it really hard to let cheese go. I can live without milk and yogurt, but man do I love cheese. If I ever muster up the willpower to cut it out of my diet, I'll definitely pay attention to how my skin reacts.

free skin care · Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:30 pm

I'm absolutely certain that there is a connection between milk and acne is some people. When I was in my late twenties to early thirties I went through an awful phase when my previously acne free cheeks became infected with acne-like blind spots. As soon as one went down another would appear. I tried cutting out normal milk for a while and it completely worked! I wished I had tried it sooner. After a month I gradually introduced organic skimmed milk and my complexion has been acne free ever since. Occasionally I will buy bad food like those rice cake snacks with cheese and what do you know a day later, I'll get one of those zits appear.

If you give your digestive system a rest for a while, it can repair and you might be able to gradually re-introduce milk. I honestly think that organic milk is healthier, it still has the cow's own hormones in it but I feel that it is the synethetic hormones and other chemicals that the cow is fed that cause additional problems.

Try some bio-acidophilus too, love Biocare's one. Very good for creating good bacteria to fight anything bad that might be festering in your gut and lowering your immune system

Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:07 pm

HMMMMM! For the past few months I have been on a Japanese food kick--morning, noon, and night. Around the same time, I got a rice cooker, so I've been eating rice with every meal. This has had several nice effects. For one, I've lost weight. For another, my skin has cleared up! Just in the last month I have really noticed the issue with my skin. My skin looks pretty good when I'm eating food that I've cooked. When I get too busy and resort to eating sandwiches, pastry, pizza, etc., then I break out. Up until I now I had put this down to a possible wheat allergy. But after reading this thread, a new thought has occurred to me. Traditional Japanese food doesn't use any dairy, and I've hardly had any dairy, except for very occasional cheese or yogurt, for months. I can't remember the last time I bought milk. Very interesting!

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