Around 80% of American teenagers have acne, while in countries on traditional diets that do not include dairy products there are virtually zero cases of acne. However, as soon as a culture becomes westernized and starts including milk and cheese in the diet, acne appears. Japan is an example of this.

Of course there may be other factors at work, but there are two reasons why milk and other dairy products may contribute to acne.

First, many people do not digest milk products well and their bodies react by dumping many of the elements that they cannot digest through the lungs in the form of mucus and the skin in the form of acne vulgaris.

Second, even in people who can digest milk just fine, there may be a reaction to the hormones that are believed to be in milk. The main cause of teenage acne is said to be hormone imbalance, and milk these days probably contains a lot more hormones than it did 50 or 100 years ago. Here’s why.

Any female human or animal that is pregnant naturally has more of certain hormones in her body. In the wild, this doesn’t matter because milk is not used until after the baby/calf is born, when the excessive hormones are no longer there. But in present-day commercial milk production cows are kept pregnant almost constantly, to make them produce more milk. Because of this, the excessive female hormones are believed to get into the milk that we drink, probably contributing to acne and possibly other problems such as obesity, breast tissue forming on men, and even breast cancer in older women.

So if you have acne, consider staying off dairy products completely for 2 weeks. This takes some planning because dairy products can be hard to avoid. You will have to check the ingredients in every food or drink that goes in your mouth. Milk powder can appear in places you would never expect it.

If you are a teenager and your mother says that you need milk, explain that this is just a 2-week test, and why you are doing it. She was young once and she probably understands more than you think! Tell her that you can still have eggs, and you can take a calcium supplement, but for these 2 weeks you will have no milk, butter, yogurt, cheese or anything containing them.

During these 2 weeks be prepared for your acne to get a little worse before it begins to get better. You may be detoxing for the first 3-7 days. You may also develop a cough or cold symptoms.

After 2 weeks, has your skin improved? Very likely the answer will be yes.

Now you can informally test your dairy tolerance by drinking a glass of milk or eating a normal portion of cheese. If you are dairy intolerant you may have an immediate reaction such as blocked or runny nose, or a headache soon after. You may have diarrhoea or a very loose BM the next day. Or you may have no immediate symptoms but if you go back to eating dairy regularly your skin may break out worse than ever. If as a result of this informal test you believe that you may be milk intolerant, have your results checked by taking a food sensitivity test with a nutritionist.

If you had a reaction, stay off dairy for another 5 days and then test yogurt. Some people can digest yogurt but not other milk products.

If there was no reaction, you are probably not sensitive to milk. You may still want to cut down your consumption to avoid the hormones that it is believed to contain, but don’t stress out about little bits of milk or cheese in foods that you eat.

Be sure to get enough calcium through other food sources or supplementation, and consult a doctor or dermatologist about treatment for severe acne vulgaris.

Food is very important in most cases of acne. Anyone who has acne should think about various foods in relation to how much fat they contain. Sweet cream, whipped cream, butter, the fat part of meats and fried foods (because they are fried in fats)-including potato chips and French fried potatoes-increase the fat content of the blood stream.

This adds to the fat content of the skin and may make acne worse. Olives and nuts contain oils and should therefore be avoided. Peanut butter fits into this category, as do the usual margarines which are made with various hydrogenated fats.

Though sugar does not in itself make acne worse, chocolate is often the worst offender. Any form of chocolate, cookies, cake, syrup for milk and sundaes, cocoa, or ice cream often brings on an outbreak of quite a few blackheads and pimples. Some teen-agers can control acne simply by avoiding chocolate.

There are teenagers who are so sensitive to fats that even the fat content of whole milk aggravates their acne if taken in large amounts. For them a top limit of three or four glasses of milk a day might be a good idea.

Of course if the teenager will substitute skim milk or buttermilk for the whole milk, he will get the nutritional benefits of milk without the disadvantages of the fat. Adolescents who think they hate the taste of skim milk should try mixing skim and whole milk half-and-half. Usually such a mixture is hard to differentiate from whole milk, yet it cuts in half the total fat intake for someone who is better off without too much fat in his diet.

A good diet for those who want to improve their complexion consists mostly of lean meats, fruits, vegetables, cottage cheese, skim milk, and plenty of water and fruit juices. Vitamins are advisable, in quantity sufficient to cover regular requirements. Some believe that very high doses of vitamin A are beneficial for this condition.

This treatment should only be carried out under a physician’s orders and with his continuing observation. Cases of nervousness, bone disorders, and various forms of skin rash have been reported from overuse of vitamin A over long periods of time.

An increase of iodine in the body fluids can make acne worse. This is true of bromine also. Someone with much trouble from acne should use regular salt, not the iodized variety, and care should be taken to avoid over consumption of cough syrups containing iodides or bromides. Since sea foods are high in iodine content, their use should be limited.

Possibly the one most important aspect of skin care in adolescence is the attitude of the individual. One young lady with many pimples on her face will say, “I’m not worried about my skin. I know it’ll clear up when I’m older. Another with beautifully clear skin will ask for a rebriefing on all aspects of acne, which she already knows by heart, because she wants to know “what to do in case I get any of those awful-looking things.” A devil-may-care, leather-jack-eted, sixteen-year-old tough guy confesses to me that he would do anything to rid his face of the few pimples he has. The teenager’s battle for independence often colors his reaction to parental suggestions about skin care. Acne, like obesity, will get no more attention than the teen-ager himself wants to give to the problem. Well-meaning parents sometimes get trapped into feeling responsible for any blemish on their children’s skin.