The within-family observation Carl S., John Roberts and others make, that on the same family diet some children get acne and some do not, deserves the direct answer the essay should have given. "Same diet" within a household rarely survives close inspection: siblings consume the same menu in different proportions, vaccination schedules differ between children of the same parents (catch-up doses, additional shots, schedule changes over the years), medication histories vary, and the emotional weather inside a household is rarely identical for any two children. Individual capacity to clear what enters the body varies, which is where the MTHFR thread lives. Families share constitutional pattern and generational burden, not identical individual exposure. The patterns are real. "The acne gene" is the wrong reading.
The age-bound question raised by Elusive1 and sharpened by Alanna, that children consume dairy with clear skin and then break out at puberty with no change in intake, is exactly what the essay's mechanism predicts, and I should have stated it directly. The insulin and IGF-1 signal is present throughout childhood. The androgen surge that turns sebaceous output into a major discharge channel arrives at puberty. Together they produce the eruption, and when the surge settles the discharge settles. Fern Barkalow's question about why the eruption concentrates on the face, chest and upper back has the same root: those regions concentrate the sebaceous glands.
On stress, Anna Frost's account is the case in miniature. Cystic acne arising during acute caregiving for her bed-ridden father, settling when he recovered, is the pattern emotional strain produces. Strain is the fourth terrain insult named in this work, and the essay underweighted it. Laura's question about constipation sits on the same axis. When the gut, the body's primary outward route, slows, the skin carries more. Stress is one of the things that slow it.
Those who want to disagree can disagree. Keep doing what you are doing! But growing up in the Caribbean, soon as you had spots on the skin the older folks said: your blood is not clean. Furthermore, a cousin suffered years with acne until he stopped all dairy. Also, I do believe stress can enhance sebum production leading to acne.
I totally disagree with this article. I grew up in a family of six kids. My father had acne and was the only one of five who had it despite all eating the same foods in the 1930’s when we did not have processed foods. Out of his six offspring, five out of six had severe acne, again despite the same diet during the 1960’s and 1970’s when we were teenagers. I have two children, one has acne the other never had a blemish in her life. Again, same diet. I am now 70, and still break out. My wife and I eat the same foods. She has hardly ever had a blemish.
My conclusion is that it is primarily a genetic anomaly. Not saying diet doesn’t add fuel to the fire but at least in my family, it can all be blamed on my dad passing down the acne gene.
Exactly. Epigenetics matters, not the genes themselves. How we react to carbohydrates and plant poisons like lectins varies, but we are getting poisoned one way or the other.
I am an adopted child and have three non adopted siblings who grew up in the sixties and early seventies.
I have had some degree of acne all of my life and when I was in school I had every kind of treatment that was prescribed with no results.
My Dad had horrible acne as a child but it went away when he was in his late twenties. My Mother and all of my siblings had perfect skin.
We all drank a ton of milk and ate a lot of ice cream and some cake from time to time. We did eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, salads, chicken, fish and steak.
We all lived in the same environment, ate the same foods but like you I was the only one who had acne my entire life.
I just think there has to be more to the story !!!
This article makes sense to me, though I find it odd that Weston Price wouldn't have picked up on this in his studies.
I have also heard about people who develop acne as a result of water fluoridation, a more recent phenomenon. This doesn't apply to everyone, but could be a significant factor.
The problems with dairy might be related to processed (pasteurized and homogenized, skimmed) milk versus raw whole milk. Also, K1 milk causes a lot more problems than K2.
My daughter had horrible acne in HS. But she also had struggled with a strange (back then in the 1990s) illness which I could not get diagnosed no matter what doctor I went to. She stopped growing, pretty much, when she was 11 and she had severe "arthritis" which a doctor told me was normal "caused by too much milk." She had stomach pains amd would get up from dinner almost every night to be sick. She struggled with fatigue. Sluggish. For 5 years. Then the acne set in HS. Painful acne
A mother offered to pay for a medicine. I refused. I knew the acne was tied to the other body issues, and I feared the effects of the drug on her already tender body. When she was 18, I left the mainstream medical community which had failed her and brought her to a holistic doctor. This doctor took ONE look at he, and said "She has a gluten. Sensitivity."
I replied "What is gluten?" This was 2004.
I am convinced she developed a gluten sensitivity after her 13 month MMR vaccine (1987) because she had a BAD reaction, and that diagnosis set her on a path to recovery.
Her gut, which had been damaged by the vaccine (the American diet was not as bad as it is today), could not handle the overload. As explained in this excellent article.
Thank you so much. I look forward to your posts every day.
I hungrily consumed this essay as a sufferer of really bad acne which started when I was 12 or 13 in early 1970s. I don't know what "kind" of acne it was except I could never wear anything that my back or chest (like swimwear or tank tops (per early 70s fashion). I had some on my face that left scars but not as bad as back and decolletage areas. Had a few treatments, infrared light, tetracycline, then the pill (which wasn't taken for acne). Had a reprieve (mostly) from the horror of it post teen years, but would experience the odd breakout after the worst was over. I read with much interest, all the comments so far. My mother who grew up in the 1940s also had it. None of us drank a lot of milk, but definitely did consume some. Her diet in the 1940s wouldn't have contained much of the processed food that came a bit later. I and my siblings would have consumed some across the 60s and 70s. My siblings didn't get acne. Two out of my three children had the same hideous acne that I had endured. Unfortunately, I allowed the medicos to prescribe roaccutane for them. It "worked" but with what consequences? (rhetorical). It is all such a puzzle, and now that I view it all through the terrain lens, one of the main commonalities across the three generations is a large degree of domestic stress. Why did only some of us, enduring the same stress, have this hideous reaction? (rhetorical). Possibly, some of us are more sensitive to the stress that we lived under. I feel I need to apologise to my children for the Roaccutane and the probable ongoing effects of it. My children have not yet understood that the terrain is the reason for all illness and associated symptoms. They are still very much propagandised by the system, and my view is somewhat weird to them. I am hoping the fact that at 69, I do not take any "harmaceuticals" or supplements, still working and am reasonably fit and well, might be a witness to them that my terrain view is not weird. I can hardly believe that I am in a fairly good condition considering I've had antibiotics, contraceptive pill, sugary diet (not excessive) some alcohol (also not excessive) processed foods etc. I have instinctively stayed away from doctors to a large degree most of my life, but for the last six years, have not visited them at all.
I agree entirely with this article, Unbecoming. Observations made over my life time support the article. Most telling, of course, is the admission, always after the fact, that POISONS were administered to the public, covertly, and most people never questioned the practice, for example of "additives" to flour, milk, and an assortment of other foods, including baby formula, in the name of "public health". They lied. They gave "margarine", an indigestible waste product a place in the market, supplanting butter. They stripped the natural fats out of dairy products and told folks that was better for them. They lied. They also lied to the public, mandating "VACCINATIONS" as necessary for health and survival. Liars have caused many health problems across every nation.
A CASE could be made that 'lying causes acne". No one can deny the presence of glyphosate in the food chain and remain credible. Glyphosate binds minerals tat are needed for health, making them unavailable. Additionally, there are generational errors made in diets... many families carry on the "traditions" of their folks, and suffer the same problems their folks suffered. Diet is critical for health, and an unhealthy diet makes unhealthy people. Thank you for the facts on acne. All of it makes perfect sense. This article should be taught in grade school across the country.
It is important to bring into the observation what I consider more primary than dietary habits/routines. There are the energetic inputs such as (air/breath, movement, sunshine, grounding, emfs, etc). And most important is the mental sphere that includes: attitudes, perceptions, trauma, fear/anxiety, etc.
One other note is that sometimes the mind-body may choose to not eliminate the toxins through the usual routes but rather store in fat to hopefully be eliminated later.
My 25 year old sun suffers from cystic acne, this is different from normal acne. He eats wholefoods and very healthy diet, no eggs, dairy, meat or processed junk. He is unvaccinated but was given vitamin K at birth without permission, and possibly Hep C jab. I believe the Hep C jab could have caused it and is causing the increase in acne in young people since the introduction of the vaccine.We have tried several ways to get rid of it and it lingers and lingers. I believe the steriods and Isotretinoin is feeding the strep. He is going to see a skin specialist once again but we do not have much hope, they all seem to follow the same paths. Everything works for awhile and gives him hope and then it comes back again.
"When acne is present, it means that the liver is harboring a chronic, low-grade level of Streptococcus. Strep lives in the organ when the liver holds an abundance of food for it." - quoted from the below articles:
Thanks for the helpful input - it’s interesting to compare experiences. Our N=1 study seemed to show some efficacy (used gel from frontier pharma). But I’ll need to take a closer look at the mechanism of action and of course do a better job of managing the root cause. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Please set me straight if I missed it, but why does acne seem to be present during a particular time of life, ie adolescence? Am I wrong? I had some. Then it was gone.
I had stress related cystic acne. It started when I was caring for my father bed ridden with cancer and went not long after he recovered. The scars are barely visible four years on. I barely had a spot in my life before this and I was 42 when it started. I sympathise greatly for people that suffer with it for years. It's confidence destroying and so itchy and painful too.
Author's Note
The within-family observation Carl S., John Roberts and others make, that on the same family diet some children get acne and some do not, deserves the direct answer the essay should have given. "Same diet" within a household rarely survives close inspection: siblings consume the same menu in different proportions, vaccination schedules differ between children of the same parents (catch-up doses, additional shots, schedule changes over the years), medication histories vary, and the emotional weather inside a household is rarely identical for any two children. Individual capacity to clear what enters the body varies, which is where the MTHFR thread lives. Families share constitutional pattern and generational burden, not identical individual exposure. The patterns are real. "The acne gene" is the wrong reading.
The age-bound question raised by Elusive1 and sharpened by Alanna, that children consume dairy with clear skin and then break out at puberty with no change in intake, is exactly what the essay's mechanism predicts, and I should have stated it directly. The insulin and IGF-1 signal is present throughout childhood. The androgen surge that turns sebaceous output into a major discharge channel arrives at puberty. Together they produce the eruption, and when the surge settles the discharge settles. Fern Barkalow's question about why the eruption concentrates on the face, chest and upper back has the same root: those regions concentrate the sebaceous glands.
On stress, Anna Frost's account is the case in miniature. Cystic acne arising during acute caregiving for her bed-ridden father, settling when he recovered, is the pattern emotional strain produces. Strain is the fourth terrain insult named in this work, and the essay underweighted it. Laura's question about constipation sits on the same axis. When the gut, the body's primary outward route, slows, the skin carries more. Stress is one of the things that slow it.
Those who want to disagree can disagree. Keep doing what you are doing! But growing up in the Caribbean, soon as you had spots on the skin the older folks said: your blood is not clean. Furthermore, a cousin suffered years with acne until he stopped all dairy. Also, I do believe stress can enhance sebum production leading to acne.
I totally disagree with this article. I grew up in a family of six kids. My father had acne and was the only one of five who had it despite all eating the same foods in the 1930’s when we did not have processed foods. Out of his six offspring, five out of six had severe acne, again despite the same diet during the 1960’s and 1970’s when we were teenagers. I have two children, one has acne the other never had a blemish in her life. Again, same diet. I am now 70, and still break out. My wife and I eat the same foods. She has hardly ever had a blemish.
My conclusion is that it is primarily a genetic anomaly. Not saying diet doesn’t add fuel to the fire but at least in my family, it can all be blamed on my dad passing down the acne gene.
CS
I feel similar. I have been through anti inflammatory diets and severe allergy diets and saw myriad improvements, but still suffered breakouts.
Also, I have noticed that many/most very obese people I know and see in media seem to have flawless skin. How is that?
Epigenetics does factor in that some people have a less stout detox pathway.
If your body has a harder time eliminating garbage you'll get more acne on the same diet/conditions.
MTHFR
https://www.purelyrootednutrition.com/post/supporting-detox-pathways-for-mthfr-gene-mutations
Exactly. Epigenetics matters, not the genes themselves. How we react to carbohydrates and plant poisons like lectins varies, but we are getting poisoned one way or the other.
Yes, that also has a big impact on whether or not a given family will experience a lot of vaccine injuries.
Seems logical.
Carl
I have some concerns as well.
I am an adopted child and have three non adopted siblings who grew up in the sixties and early seventies.
I have had some degree of acne all of my life and when I was in school I had every kind of treatment that was prescribed with no results.
My Dad had horrible acne as a child but it went away when he was in his late twenties. My Mother and all of my siblings had perfect skin.
We all drank a ton of milk and ate a lot of ice cream and some cake from time to time. We did eat a lot of fruits, vegetables, salads, chicken, fish and steak.
We all lived in the same environment, ate the same foods but like you I was the only one who had acne my entire life.
I just think there has to be more to the story !!!
This article makes sense to me, though I find it odd that Weston Price wouldn't have picked up on this in his studies.
I have also heard about people who develop acne as a result of water fluoridation, a more recent phenomenon. This doesn't apply to everyone, but could be a significant factor.
The problems with dairy might be related to processed (pasteurized and homogenized, skimmed) milk versus raw whole milk. Also, K1 milk causes a lot more problems than K2.
I'm glad you inserted seed oils. They definitely belong on the list with the other culprits.
My daughter had horrible acne in HS. But she also had struggled with a strange (back then in the 1990s) illness which I could not get diagnosed no matter what doctor I went to. She stopped growing, pretty much, when she was 11 and she had severe "arthritis" which a doctor told me was normal "caused by too much milk." She had stomach pains amd would get up from dinner almost every night to be sick. She struggled with fatigue. Sluggish. For 5 years. Then the acne set in HS. Painful acne
A mother offered to pay for a medicine. I refused. I knew the acne was tied to the other body issues, and I feared the effects of the drug on her already tender body. When she was 18, I left the mainstream medical community which had failed her and brought her to a holistic doctor. This doctor took ONE look at he, and said "She has a gluten. Sensitivity."
I replied "What is gluten?" This was 2004.
I am convinced she developed a gluten sensitivity after her 13 month MMR vaccine (1987) because she had a BAD reaction, and that diagnosis set her on a path to recovery.
Her gut, which had been damaged by the vaccine (the American diet was not as bad as it is today), could not handle the overload. As explained in this excellent article.
Thank you so much. I look forward to your posts every day.
I hungrily consumed this essay as a sufferer of really bad acne which started when I was 12 or 13 in early 1970s. I don't know what "kind" of acne it was except I could never wear anything that my back or chest (like swimwear or tank tops (per early 70s fashion). I had some on my face that left scars but not as bad as back and decolletage areas. Had a few treatments, infrared light, tetracycline, then the pill (which wasn't taken for acne). Had a reprieve (mostly) from the horror of it post teen years, but would experience the odd breakout after the worst was over. I read with much interest, all the comments so far. My mother who grew up in the 1940s also had it. None of us drank a lot of milk, but definitely did consume some. Her diet in the 1940s wouldn't have contained much of the processed food that came a bit later. I and my siblings would have consumed some across the 60s and 70s. My siblings didn't get acne. Two out of my three children had the same hideous acne that I had endured. Unfortunately, I allowed the medicos to prescribe roaccutane for them. It "worked" but with what consequences? (rhetorical). It is all such a puzzle, and now that I view it all through the terrain lens, one of the main commonalities across the three generations is a large degree of domestic stress. Why did only some of us, enduring the same stress, have this hideous reaction? (rhetorical). Possibly, some of us are more sensitive to the stress that we lived under. I feel I need to apologise to my children for the Roaccutane and the probable ongoing effects of it. My children have not yet understood that the terrain is the reason for all illness and associated symptoms. They are still very much propagandised by the system, and my view is somewhat weird to them. I am hoping the fact that at 69, I do not take any "harmaceuticals" or supplements, still working and am reasonably fit and well, might be a witness to them that my terrain view is not weird. I can hardly believe that I am in a fairly good condition considering I've had antibiotics, contraceptive pill, sugary diet (not excessive) some alcohol (also not excessive) processed foods etc. I have instinctively stayed away from doctors to a large degree most of my life, but for the last six years, have not visited them at all.
I agree entirely with this article, Unbecoming. Observations made over my life time support the article. Most telling, of course, is the admission, always after the fact, that POISONS were administered to the public, covertly, and most people never questioned the practice, for example of "additives" to flour, milk, and an assortment of other foods, including baby formula, in the name of "public health". They lied. They gave "margarine", an indigestible waste product a place in the market, supplanting butter. They stripped the natural fats out of dairy products and told folks that was better for them. They lied. They also lied to the public, mandating "VACCINATIONS" as necessary for health and survival. Liars have caused many health problems across every nation.
A CASE could be made that 'lying causes acne". No one can deny the presence of glyphosate in the food chain and remain credible. Glyphosate binds minerals tat are needed for health, making them unavailable. Additionally, there are generational errors made in diets... many families carry on the "traditions" of their folks, and suffer the same problems their folks suffered. Diet is critical for health, and an unhealthy diet makes unhealthy people. Thank you for the facts on acne. All of it makes perfect sense. This article should be taught in grade school across the country.
It is important to bring into the observation what I consider more primary than dietary habits/routines. There are the energetic inputs such as (air/breath, movement, sunshine, grounding, emfs, etc). And most important is the mental sphere that includes: attitudes, perceptions, trauma, fear/anxiety, etc.
One other note is that sometimes the mind-body may choose to not eliminate the toxins through the usual routes but rather store in fat to hopefully be eliminated later.
My 25 year old sun suffers from cystic acne, this is different from normal acne. He eats wholefoods and very healthy diet, no eggs, dairy, meat or processed junk. He is unvaccinated but was given vitamin K at birth without permission, and possibly Hep C jab. I believe the Hep C jab could have caused it and is causing the increase in acne in young people since the introduction of the vaccine.We have tried several ways to get rid of it and it lingers and lingers. I believe the steriods and Isotretinoin is feeding the strep. He is going to see a skin specialist once again but we do not have much hope, they all seem to follow the same paths. Everything works for awhile and gives him hope and then it comes back again.
"When acne is present, it means that the liver is harboring a chronic, low-grade level of Streptococcus. Strep lives in the organ when the liver holds an abundance of food for it." - quoted from the below articles:
https://www.medicalmedium.com/liver-rescue-medical-medium/acne
https://www.medicalmedium.com/blog/healing-acne
Although age may be a factor, my skin improved dramatically once I stopped drinking milk.
Does this mean that chlorine dioxide based acne gels may be effective because they help open the channels of elimination?
[I understand terrain theory would argue any “acne product” still does not address the root cause that creates the need for elimination, i.e., diet.]
Thank you for that thoughtful essay on the topic.
As someone who has tried these, an N=1, I can say they are ineffective.
Thanks for the helpful input - it’s interesting to compare experiences. Our N=1 study seemed to show some efficacy (used gel from frontier pharma). But I’ll need to take a closer look at the mechanism of action and of course do a better job of managing the root cause. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Please set me straight if I missed it, but why does acne seem to be present during a particular time of life, ie adolescence? Am I wrong? I had some. Then it was gone.
Great write-up! Thank you
My goto for acne type issues is DMSO.
How would you use it? Can you give more details and a time frame please?
I just apply it to the affected area topically before bed and see results next day.
I had stress related cystic acne. It started when I was caring for my father bed ridden with cancer and went not long after he recovered. The scars are barely visible four years on. I barely had a spot in my life before this and I was 42 when it started. I sympathise greatly for people that suffer with it for years. It's confidence destroying and so itchy and painful too.
I'm wondering if constipation is related to acne?