Master Your Acne

Master Your Acne
THE SELF-STUDY GUIDE FOR ACNE SUCCESS

by
Devin(Mooers
!!!!!!2011
Table of Contents
How To Use This Document .................................................................5
Official Disclaimer ................................................................................6
Unofficial Disclaimer ............................................................................7
1 .............................................................................................................8
The Ending, First
2 .............................................................................................................9
Are You Listening to Your Acne?
How Come My Dermatologist Didnt Tell Me All This?
The Shotgun Approach
Overcome the Victim Mentality
Find Your Own Truth
Symptoms vs. Causes
9
11
12
13
13
14
3 ...........................................................................................................16
What Is Acne, Anyways?
IGF-1
Blood Sugar and Insulin
Glycemic Index and Acne
The Dangers of Inflammation
The Role of P. acnes Bacteria
Foods That Cause Inflammation
Foods That Cool Inflammation
On Supplements
16
22
24
25
29
30
30
32
33
4 ...........................................................................................................35
Genes and Acne
35
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5 ...........................................................................................................39
What Can Tradition Teach Us?
39
6...........................................................................................................42
The Four Worst Foods For Acne
Acne Demon #1: Dairy
Acne Demon #2: Sugar
Acne Demon #3: Vegetable Oil
Acne Demon #4: Gluten
Summary
42
42
45
46
49
51
7 ...........................................................................................................52
How to Get Even Faster Results
Grains
Beans & Legumes
For Vegetarians and Vegans
52
52
53
55
8...........................................................................................................56
So What Can I Eat?
The Master List of Clear Skin Foods
How NOT To Use This List
Organic vs. Conventional
Hidden Ingredients
Eat Like Royalty
Tricks to Save Money
Benefits of Butter
Educate Yourself
56
57
63
63
66
67
69
70
71
9 ...........................................................................................................72
Supplements
Omega-3s (EPA)
Vitamin D
Zinc
72
73
76
78
10 ........................................................................................................82
Digestion and Gut Health
82
Devin Mooers 2011. Reproduction or distribution without authorization is strictly prohibited.
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11 .........................................................................................................85
The Last Few Keys to Clear Skin
Sleep
Stress
Exercise
Quit Using Skin & Hair Care Products
Clean Up Your Home and Office
Smoking
85
85
86
89
90
92
93
12 .........................................................................................................94
Final Words
94
Appendix .............................................................................................96
Glycemic Index and Insulin Index
96
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How To Use This Document

Pretty simple read it through, follow the techniques and advice, and youll
soon be well on your way to clear skin!
Some parts are fairly complex, because acne is a complex problem, and I
want you to understand the real causes of acne, because you must
understand it before you can master it. Ive tried my best to make this
information as easy to understand as possible, but its tough work. If you
find terms or concepts that are confusing, you can email me at
info@masteryouracne.com, but dont sweat the small stuff.
A note on navigation: if youre reading this as a PDF, you can click on the
page numbers in the Table of Contents to go the corresponding page.
Additional tables and information are included in the appendix.
Superscript-number citations appear at the end of the document.
I wish you luck!
Kind Regards,
Devin Mooers
Master Your Acne
info@masteryouracne.com
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Official Disclaimer
Content in this book is for reference purposes and is not intended to
substitute for advice given by a physician, pharmacist, or other licensed
health-care professional. You should not use this information as selfdiagnosis or for treating a health problem or disease. Contact your healthcare provider immediately if you suspect that you have a medical problem.
Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been
evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to
diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition.
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Unofficial Disclaimer
With this method, results vary from person to person, depending on how
much effort you dedicate to the method, and how strongly you persevere. By
working hard at making these diet and lifestyle changes, you can truly
transform your skin thats a promise.
So work hard, apply yourself, and you will see clear skin in less time than
you ever thought possible!
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1
The Ending, First
When you write a book, youre not supposed to give away the ending on the
first page. But here we go. Heres how to cure acne:
Rub your face with coconut oil twice a day, drink green tea three times a
day, sprinkle cinnamon on everything you eat, eat nothing but apples for
three days, take a twice-daily cocktail of chromium, zinc, selenium, vitamin
B5, vitamin B6, vitamin A, vitamin E, fish oil, fermented cod liver oil, EGCG,
garlic extract, coconut oil, red palm oil, high-vitamin butter oil, evening
primrose oil, MSM, saw palmetto, L-glutamine, alpha-lipoic acid, probiotics,
Co-Q10, and resveratrol, and finally, surgically remove all your pimples with
a scalpel. Bang, no acne!
Okay, that's pretty morbid. But aside from the scalpel, this approach would
virtually guarantee you clear skin in a matter of weeks.
This approach is the sum total of all the advice given by the acne gurus out
there. Then why not do all of these things?
Because its ridiculous, unsustainable, a waste of money, and possibly
dangerous. I have tried many of these things, and you may have too but
Im here to tell you that theres a better way.
And thats what this book is for.
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2
Are You Listening to Your Acne?
When you resort to attacking the messenger and not the
message, you have lost the debate.
ADDISON WHITHECOMB
Here's the thing: acne may well be the most important thing that ever
happened to you.
Acne is not your enemy; its a messenger, carrying critical news about your
health. You've got to listen, or risk serious disease down the road.
If you hadn't had acne, you wouldn't be here now, reading this. You have
acne because your body's trying to say, "Listen to me, will you? Youre
hurting me! You're doing something wrong, and I'm suffering, and acne is
the best way I know how to tell you that!" If you cover up those signals with
makeup or harsh medicines, you're stifling your body's cries for change.
Think about that for a moment. What are you doing every day to cover up
these signals, to cover up your acne?
I say that having acne may be the best thing that ever happened to you,
because you're learning something that people with perfect skin may never
learn: how to listen to your body and give it what it needs for ultimate
health.
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So really, this acne stuff goes deeper than just a bunch of humiliating red
bumps on your face it's about taking your health into your own hands,
overturning all the false information that's been drilled into your head, and
taking control of your life. And finally achieving clear skin in the process.
I want you to flip acne around and start thinking of it as a positive force of
change in your life.
The biggest leap you have to make between you and clear skin is to accept
acne as a positive thing. As a friend, watching out for you.
When I was a child, I was deeply affected by the novel Enders Game, in
which a boy prodigy commands humanitys forces in an attack against a
hostile alien race. One thing the boy says burned itself into my mind forever:
love your enemies.
You have to give up the war on acne immediately. You can't win. You've been
fighting that battle for a long time, and you're about ready to break down
and surrender thats why youre here, reading this. It turns out that
surrendering is exactly what you must do. You must work with your acne.
You must learn to see it as a partner, mentor, and tutor. You must respect it
and feel compassion for it, and listen to what it has to say. Only then will its
purpose be fulfilled, and it will disappear into the shadows, coming back only
now again to give you a gentle tap on the shoulder and say, Hey, you're
going astray. Remember what we learned together? Remember that TLC you
promised me?
Another way to think about this: instead of fighting acne, instead of fighting
the messenger, wage war on your real enemy, the enemy your acnes trying
to warn you about. Wage war on the toxins, the pollutants, the chemicals,
the stress all the bad stuff you've been unknowingly poisoning your body
with.
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How Come My Dermatologist Didnt Tell Me All

This?
Love your enemies, just in case your friends turn out to be
bastards.
- ESKIMO PROVERB
You thought you could trust your doctor. After all, he went to medical school,
right? He or she should know everything there is to know about skin health,
including how diet affects acne, right?
Unfortunately, most medical schools fall short of the recommended minimum
of 25 hours of required nutrition classes. Here are a few other shocking
findings from a 2009 study by researchers at UNC Chapel Hill:1
1. Most graduating medical students continue to rate their nutrition
preparation as inadequate
2. Only a quarter of medical schools require a dedicated nutrition course at
all for most, nutrition education is integrated into other courses
3. Medical students received an average of 19.6 hours of nutrition
instruction
(Compare that to naturopathic doctor Alan C. Logan, whose transcript
showed 223 hours of dedicated nutrition education in his four years of
naturopathy school, not including hundreds of hours of clinical practice.2
Naturopathy is founded on nutrition; western medicine is clearly not.)
So your average doctor has barely studied nutrition at all, besides the
minority of holistic or naturopathic doctors (and you probably would not be
reading this if you had one of those). Consequently, your doctor probably
believes that diet has little or nothing to do with acne which you will soon
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see is absolutely false. Quite simply, diet has almost everything to do with
acne. And so your doctor may be misleading you, because they dont know
the whole story.
(More generally, its important to remember that dermatologists, along with
all conventional doctors, base their knowledge on courses taken in medical
school; these courses themselves are based on popular wisdom stances on
health and diet, drawn largely from biased studies funded by giant
pharmaceutical companies, grain-grower lobbies, the dairy lobby, and other
huge corporate groups with a vested interest in making money. Most
medical schools are heavily funded by pharmaceutical companies, as well.
For these corporations, the actual health of people is a side-issue at best,
and a complete non-issue at worst far from the sine qua non that it should
be. So remember: although medical professionals are kind and wellintentioned people, youve got to take doctors orders with a huge lump of
salt. Remember what interests lay behind their years of medical schooling.)
Acne, on the other hand, is your friend; it will not lie to you, has your best
interest in mind, and will not try to sell you prescriptions. It gently nudges
you on the shoulder when you go astray.
The Shotgun Approach

To hell with silver bullets.
Why? Unless your aim is perfect, you'll miss every time, because acne is a
complex moving target. No, we'll be using the shotgun approach. Why?
Because it's the approach that will get rid of your acne the fastest. For most
people, there is not just one single thing missing from their diet or lifestyle,
but rather theres a sticky, interconnected web of problems that must all be
addressed to have the greatest chances of success.
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Overcome the Victim Mentality

If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If
we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its
victim.
RICHARD BACH, AMERICAN AUTHOR
Alright, it's time to snap out of your victim mentality.

Do you ever catch yourself thinking this? I'm a victim of acne. I got bad
genes, and there's nothing I can do to fix it. The best I can do is use coverup, or get prescription medicines to combat the acne.
This victim mentality is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know that, deep-down.
The more you tell yourself that you're a victim of acne, and that you're
helpless to change it, the more you rob yourself of personal strength,
willpower, and ability to change anything! The more you tell yourself youre a
victim, the more you make yourself one. You might even say that being a
victim is boring because nothing changes! You remain a victim forever,
until you start stepping in and taking control.
You have to take responsibility for your acne. You brought it about, nobody
else. Now, that might seem unfair, and you're right to think that your choices
have been largely dictated by others parents, friends, doctors, the media;
but you've got to start taking responsibility now for turning those choices
around. You've got to educate and empower yourself. This course is the key.
Find Your Own Truth

You might be asking yourself, why should I believe what this guy has to
say? And youre absolutely right to think that. Ultimately, I'm just another
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guy with my own experience, my own knowledge, and my own opinions and
beliefs. However, I urge you to read this if it resonates with you, if it speaks
to you to your logic, your emotions, and your bullshit meter. Accept what
resonates, and discard (or at least carefully scrutinize) what doesn't the
things that strike you as odd or misguided or just plain wrong. This is not
about me telling you what to do. It's me giving my stance on things, and you
taking what you want from it. I've had enough of people telling me how to
eat, how to exercise, how to live. And I bet you have too. Here's to
independence of thought, and to free will.
With that, lets dive into current acne treatments, and why they so often fail
in the long term.
Symptoms vs. Causes

Here's the problem with almost every acne treatment in existence: in treats
symptoms, not causes. You might be thinking, I don't care, as long as it gets
rid of my acne! But listen: that's not a path you want to go down. You've
been down that road, you know what it looks like. Trying cure after cure,
rubbing baking soda on your face every night, paying hundreds of dollars for
medications, in a blind stumbling search for something, just something that
works, and doesn't leave you with too many nasty side effects. (Has anyone
told you about the side effects of Accutane? Birth defects, hair loss,
depression, sleep problems, seizures, nosebleeds, eczema, lower back pain,
inflammatory bowel disease, breathing difficulties, and reduced blood flow to
the brain? Is that something worth messing around with?)
To illustrate symptoms vs. causes, heres an analogy: if you wanted to make
the tomatoes growing in your back yard taste better, you could inject each
one with a flavor-enhancing chemical cocktail, but you'd be treating the
symptom (bad flavor) rather than the cause (poor environment). What you
really need to do is fix the growing conditions. Put the tomatoes in the right
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type of soil. Give them the sun, water, microbes and temperatures they need
to grow and thrive.
Still going on the tomato analogy. Living things tomatoes, plants, animals,
and you require healthy environments to grow and thrive. If conditions
aren't right, you get problems. For example, planting tomatoes in muddy,
soggy soil leads to tasteless, pale, mushy tomatoes. Similarly, planting
humans in a poor environment leads to all sorts of diseases, of which acne is
a very benign but extremely humiliating one.
When you get acne, it's a sign that there's something

fundamentally wrong with your environment, including
your diet, sleep habits, stress levels, exercise, and
social and emotional well-being.
The Internet is full to bursting with supposed miracle acne cures. A quick
search turns up everything from prescription drugs to apple cider vinegar to
baking soda to putting your own pee on your pimples. I'm willing to grant
that there may be something of value in urine therapy, but it's still a surfacelevel, symptom-treating solution, and hence not really a solution at all it
just puts off the problem until later, when you decide to stop using whatever
miracle cure you're on this week, or it decides to stop working. Then you hop
onto the next miracle cure, the one that's actually going to work this time!
You get the picture. It's cyclic.
To break out of this cycle, you and I need to examine our assumptions, and
discover how we've been led astray. No more being addicted to acne drug
companies and miracle cure-alls; its time to take the power into our own
hands.
Alright, on to the meaty stuff.
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3
What Is Acne, Anyways?
Here we go. Its science time, but Ill keep it short and sweet. Skip it at your
own risk. The better you understand acne, the faster you'll master it.
Lets start with whiteheads versus blackheads.
From Wikipedia:
A blackhead (medically known as an open comedo,
plural comedones) is a yellow or blackish bump or
plug on the skin. A blackhead is a type of acne
vulgaris. Contrary to the common belief that it is
caused by poor hygiene, blackheads are caused
by excess oils that have accumulated in the
sebaceous gland's duct. The substance found in
these bumps mostly consists of keratin and modified
sebum (an oily secretion of the sebaceous gland),
which darkens as it oxidizes. Clogged hair follicles,
where blackheads often occur, reflect light irregularly
to produce a blackhead's "black" hue. For this
reason, the blockage might not necessarily look
black when extracted from the pore, but may have a
more yellow-brown colour as a result of its melanin
content.
In contrast, a "whitehead" (more commonly known
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as a pimple or a closed comedo) is a follicle that is

filled with the same material, sebum, but lacks a
small opening to the skin surface. Since the air
cannot reach the follicle, the material is not oxidized,
and remains white.
So already, were finding out

that pimples are not caused
by poor hygiene. Instead,
acne occurs when your skin
produces too much sebum
(oil) and keratin (a protein
that binds dead skin cells
together so they clump up),
forming microscopic plugs
that block your hair follicles
and lead to acne. Once that
happens, sebum and dead
skin cells can no longer exit
the pore, so they start
building up inside the pore:
Normal hair follicle
Thats all fine and dandy,

but what accounts for the
redness and swelling? The
fires of inflammation are
to blame for that.
Inflammation is really the
knockout blow for acne
sufferers; without it, all
youd have would be a
bunch of tiny whiteheads
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and blackheads, but with no redness, no swelling, and no lumps. If only it

were that easy!
(To clarify, sebum is an oily, waxy substance secreted by your sebaceous

glands to protect, lubricate, and waterproof the skin. Sebum is made of fat
(lipids), wax, and the debris of dead fat-producing cells. It also delivers
Vitamin E, and contains 45% fatty acids with anti-microbial activity, fighting
off bacteria and other pathogens.3)
(And keratinocytes are skin cells that form the entire structure of your outer
skin layer. Theyre really just dead skin cells that have been keratinized, or
filled with semi-rigid waxy proteins, forming the tough, protective outer
layer of your skin.)
Note: washing your face with acne scrubs irritates the skin, and can worsen
inflammation. Furthermore, using benzoyl peroxide (Clearasil, others) can be
effective in reducing acne, but it only covers up the problem, and thus
prevents you from getting the critical warnings about your health that your
acne is trying to give you.
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Benzoyl peroxide is a drying and peeling agent, which works to extract those
excess dead skin cells from your pores to unclog them. It also fights P. acnes
bacteria and reduces inflammation. I used benzoyl peroxide for a long time,
but I strongly advise against using it, based on what I know now. (It also
bleached my favorite shirt on more than one occasion.)
Benzoyl peroxide causes over-drying of the skin, and slows down your skins
self-healing process dramatically. People who use benzoyl peroxide
frequently report red, dry, itchy, flaky skin I had a friend in college using
BP, and his whole face looked like it was about to flake off.
Benzoyl peroxide also causes problems you cant see: for example, it
destroys your bodys natural skin antioxidants, reducing skin levels of
vitamin E by up to 95% and vitamin C by up to 70%.4 Vitamin E and C are
two of your skins most potent natural defense mechanisms against
pathogens and free radicals, and the fact that benzoyl peroxide almost
completely knocks them out is extremely worrying.
To make matters worse, benzoyl peroxide causes the formation of free
radicals, which severely damage your skin cells, mutate DNA, and slow the
healing process. Free radicals may play a significant role in causing cancer.
BP may be effective in unclogging your pores, but it causes so much
collateral damage that people ought to think twice before using it, instead of
pasting it on day after day (as I once did). The same goes for Accutane,
Proactiv, Retin-A, which in most cases are far more dangerous than benzoyl
peroxide leave these products to acne sufferers who dont care about their
health. Youre not one of those people. Fortunately, there are other, better
ways to cure acne that dont have the same negative side effects, and thats
what this book is about.
Back to the causes of acne. So far, weve got three stages:
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1. Your skin produces excess sebum.

2. Sebum mixes with excess keratin in your hair
follicles, clogging them.
3. Inflammation pours on gasoline and lights a
match.
Lets add a fourth stage: P. acnes bacteria colonize your blocked pores; once
they set up shop, they reproduce by feeding on your sebum, and provoke
extreme inflammation.
Heres the kind of definition you find in a dermatology paper:5
The pathology consists of blockage and

inflammation of the pilosebaceous unit, usually
with the initial occurrence around the time of
puberty in mid-adolescence. Androgens, which
increase during puberty, stimulate the sebaceous
gland to produce sebum and cause retention of
keratinocytes around the sebaceous hair follicle
orifice causing partial to complete blockage and
leading to colonization with Propionibacterium
acnes, which participates in the production of proinflammatory mediators.
Its a little dry, but its accurate. Heres what I call The Action Movie
Definition (try saying it out loud with that epic movie trailer voice):
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One woman. One way. One desire: clear skin. But

an evil mastermind has another plan: acne. This
mastermind, calling himself Hormione, will do
whatever it takes to stop our hero from reaching
her goal. He will stop at nothing, torturing her
skin cells into exuding more sebum, clogging her
pores with glue-like keratin and even initiating
bioterrorism with a virulent strain of P. acnes
bacteria. The result? Utter mayhem. Our hero
despairs. Her skin starts attacking itself, stoking
the bonfires of inflammation, where before there
was peace and harmony. Can she do what it takes
to defeat this powerful opponent?
And her fate, of course, is for you to decide.

So whats to blame for acne? Why does our skin produce excess sebum?
Why do dead skin cells get stuck in our hair follicles, when they should be
able to escape naturally? Why do we have so much inflammation, to make
the problem worse?
The actual science behind this would be news to your average dermatologist,
especially because no one fully understands it yet, not even the front-line
researchers. For now, Im going to talk about one major player in acne thats
fairly well understood.
That player is called insulin-like growth factor-1, or IGF-1 for short.
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IGF-1
What is IGF-1? Well, IGF-1 is responsible for stimulating human growth, and
is most active until the end of puberty; afterward, it's supposed to decline
dramatically as you stop growing. But you can trick your body into producing
extra IGF-1 in a few different ways and most importantly, for our
purposes, is diet. More on that in a minute but first, how does IGF-1 give
you acne?
IGF-1 makes acne worse because it directly signals your oil glands to
produce more sebum. As we already know, too much sebum clogs pores,
creating comedones and eventually acne. To make the problem worse, IGF-1
causes dead skin cells in your pores to stick together, so they cant slough
off and exit the pores like theyre supposed to the second key ingredient in
clogged pores and acne.
Here's how it works: skin cells die naturally all the time, as your skin renews
and replaces itself. These dead skin cells are supposed to exit the skin
through your pores, but essentially, IGF-1 prevents these dead cells from
leaving, by clumping them together and binding them to the inside of your
pores so they can't break off (the "follicular hyperkeratosis"). When these
dead skin cells can't exit the pores properly, they build up and clog your
pores, leading to those little (or big) red bumps we're so familiar with. Once
your pores are clogged, all you need is a highly inflammatory diet and/or
lifestyle, and you'll get great big acne lesions.
And IGF-1 itself worsens inflammation in a big way.
And heres the kicker: certain foods make you produce way more IGF-1 than
youre supposed to. And a lot of those foods are mainstays in our food
culture youve probably eaten all of them in the past two days. Ill get to
these in a little bit.
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By stimulating your body to produce extra IGF-1, you're creating a sickly

milieu with the potential to create acne and other, more dangerous diseases
(diabetes, clogged arteries & heart disease, arthritis, Alzheimers,
Parkinsons, and that fearsome killer cancer.) This is why acne goes more
than skin-deep. Its truly a whole-body problem.
So, fix your acne, fix your health. Put another way: fix the underlying causes
of your acne, and youll be giving your body everything it needs to create
optimum health, and shielding it from damaging foods and chemicals that
could lead to disease and an early death.
What's one of the worst foods for stimulating IGF-1? Cow's milk. That's
because cow's milk is meant for rapidly-growing calves, and is loaded with
bovine IGF-1, which is structurally and functionally identical to human IGF-1.
Drink milk, elevate your IGF-1, suffer from more acne.
What else should you watch out for that boosts IGF-1? Whey protein,
creatine, and low-fat diets. Bodybuilders beware: its a widely-accepted fact
that GOMAD (gallon of milk a day), protein powders, creatine, and
testosterone boosters are likely to give you tons of acne along with those big
muscles. If you use these products regularly, but you still want to get rid of
acne, you have two options: 1) stop using them when you reach your
desired mass goal, and then focus on curing your acne with the program
outlined in this course; 2) continue to use them, but try your hardest to
counteract them with powerful anti-inflammatory foods and anti-acne
supplements, which Ill get into later.
(Here's a tip: if you want to quickly and dramatically lower your IGF-1 levels,
eat tomatoes. Tomato extract, tomato juice, tomato soup, cooked tomatoes,
or fresh tomatoes. For whatever reason some researchers think it might be
the lycopene tomatoes have a powerful positive effect on lowering IGF-1,
and thus reducing acne. As I write this, Im eating an omelette with fresh
tomatoes, cooked tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, and a hefty dollop of
tomato paste. Now thats tomato power.)
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Blood Sugar and Insulin

So we know that IGF-1 makes your body produce too much sebum; it turns
out that blood sugar swings do exactly the same thing. The culprit? Insulin,
that hormone so intimately involved in diabetes. Don't get me wrong, insulin
is crucial to human health it removes excess glucose (sugar) from the
blood and packs it into your liver, muscles, and fat cells to be used as energy
later. As a side effect, insulin keeps your blood sugar levels low, which would
otherwise be toxic.6 And when insulin stops doing its job, you get diabetes,
because your blood sugar stays high all the time. This can also cause acne.
Indeed, studies have shown that acne sufferers tend to have insulin systems
that don't work very well. That means when they eat blood-sugar-spiking
foods, their blood sugar stays elevated especially sugar levels in the skin.
(More on that in a moment.) So you might think of acne as diabetes of the
skin. Of course, if you have diabetes of the skin, you can bet that theres
something wonky with your whole insulin-and-blood-sugar system, and you
could be well on the road toward diabetes. Shocking fact: an estimated 79
million Americans have pre-diabetes but don't even know it.7
As one person put it, all you have to do to cure acne is to eat, sleep,
supplement and exercise like you are a diabetic. 8
In short: insulin provides very important functions in the body, but it has a
dark side. Whenever you eat something that spikes your blood sugar, and
thus your insulin levels be it bread, sugar, white rice, potatoes, milk, or
fruit juice you're telling your skin to produce more sebum, which, as we
now know, clogs pores and leads to acne. This leads us in to the final key to
the acne puzzle: whenever you spike your blood sugar and release a cascade
of insulin, youre setting the stage for the most evil villain of all:
inflammation.
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Glycemic Index and Acne

A recent analysis of the literature found six studies supporting the fact that
high-glycemic diets meaning diets with lots of sugar, refined
carbohydrates, and other foods that spike your blood sugar contribute to
acne.9 How? Primarily, by increasing IGF-1 and reducing sex hormone
binding globulin (SBHG), thus increasing androgen activity, and causing
excess sebum and keratin production.10 If youll remember, thats a recipe
for disaster, and leads to clogged pores. In addition to excessively boosting
androgen activity, high-glycemic diets lead to insulin resistance, constantly
elevated blood sugar, glycation, and a depressed immune system all
ingredients in a recipe for acne.
As you may already know, its actually possible to measure how strongly
certain foods spike your blood sugar. The most well-known measurement is
called the glycemic index. Foods are measured in how quickly and severely
they spike your blood sugar, and given a corresponding numerical value.
Heres trusty Wikipedias breakdown:11
Classification
GI range
Examples
Low GI
55 or less
meat, eggs, most fruits and vegetables,

legumes/pulses, whole grains, nuts,
fructose and products low in
carbohydrates
Medium GI
5669
whole wheat products, basmati rice,

sweet potato, sucrose, baked potatoes
High GI
70 and above
white bread, most white rices, corn

flakes, breakfast cereals, glucose, maltose
In terms of acne, the best place to be is the Low GI range. These foods will
not cause nearly as much of a blood sugar and insulin rush as Medium GI
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and High GI foods, and thus will not make your skin produce excess sebum
or become inflamed.
The problem with Glycemic Index is that it doesnt take into account how
much of each food is actually carbohydrate. It only measures the bloodsugar-spiking effect of a gram of carrot carbohydrate versus a gram of white
bread carbohydrate. Its misleading, because carrots have a high glycemic
index, but they also contain lots of water, fiber, and other nutrients, so when
you eat a serving of carrots, youre not actually getting much sugar at all
so it really doesnt matter that it has a high glycemic index.
Thats why an alternative measurement was developed, called Glycemic
Load. It adjusts for the individual carbohydrate content of each food, and
standardizes the serving size.
Heres the formula:
GL = GI x the amount of available carbohydrate in a 100-gram serving / 100
So if 100 grams of carrots contain 10 grams of carbohydrates, with a GI of
35,12 thats a glycemic load of 35 * 10 / 100 = 3.5. Thats an extremely low
glycemic load, and hence wont worsen acne at all.
White bread contains 50g of carbohydrates per 100g, and has a GI of 71.13
Thats a glycemic load of 71 * 50 / 100 = 35.5. Thats 10 times as high as a
serving of carrots! Stay away from white bread your skin will thank you.
Now, glycemic load is indeed a useful measurement, but Im sorry, Ive just
taken you through all that math just to tell you that theres an even better
one. Its called the Insulin Index. It measures how much foods spike your
insulin, not just your blood sugar. Your body releases insulin when your
blood sugar rises after eating. This usually occurs after eating
carbohydrates. However, the Insulin Index is so important because some
foods that dont contain any carbohydrates at all, including meat and eggs,
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actually do provoke an insulin response, and as weve seen, controlling your

bodys insulin response is extremely important in curing acne.
The real poster child for the Insulin Index is dairy it creates an extremely
high insulin response, even though it has a relatively low glycemic index and
glycemic load. In fact, it spikes your insulin three to six times as much as it
should, given its GI / GL.14 As well soon see, dairy is one of the key foods to
avoid in our diet-based approach to clear skin.
The best thing to do here is to learn and internalize the Insulin Index of
common, everyday foods, and choose foods on the lower end of the
spectrum. Heres a combined list of the glycemic and insulin index of
common foods:15
Food
Food Type
Glycemic
Index
Insulin
Index
All-Bran
Breakfast Cereal
40
32
Porridge
Breakfast Cereal
60
40
Muesli
Breakfast Cereal
43
46
Special K
Breakfast Cereal
70
66
Honeysmacks
Breakfast Cereal
60
67
Sustain
Breakfast Cereal
66
71
Cornflakes
Breakfast Cereal
76
75
Average:
Breakfast Cereal
59
57
White bread
(baseline)
Carbohydrate-rich
100
100
White pasta
Carbohydrate-rich
46
40
Brown pasta
Carbohydrate-rich
68
40
Grain bread
Carbohydrate-rich
60
56
Brown rice
Carbohydrate-rich
104
62
French fries
Carbohydrate-rich
71
74
White rice
Carbohydrate-rich
110
79
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Whole-meal
bread
Carbohydrate-rich
97
96
Potatoes
Carbohydrate-rich
141
121
Average:
Carbohydrate-rich
88
74
Eggs
Protein-rich
42
31
Cheese
Protein-rich
55
45
Beef
Protein-rich
21
51
Lentils
Protein-rich
62
58
Fish
Protein-rich
28
59
Baked beans
Protein-rich
114
120
Average:
Protein-rich
54
61
Apples
Fruit
50
59
Oranges
Fruit
39
60
Bananas
Fruit
79
81
Grapes
Fruit
74
82
Average:
Fruit
61
71
Peanuts
Snack/confectionery
12
20
Popcorn
Snack/confectionery
62
54
Potato chips
Snack/confectionery
52
61
Ice cream
Snack/confectionery
70
89
Yoghurt
Snack/confectionery
62
115
Mars Bars
Snack/confectionery
79
122
Jellybeans
Snack/confectionery
118
160
Average:
Snack/confectionery 65
89
Doughnuts
Bakery product
63
74
Croissants
Bakery product
74
79
Cake
Bakery product
56
82
Crackers
Bakery product
118
87
Cookies
Bakery product
74
92
Average:
Bakery product
77
83
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As you can see, carbohydrate-rich foods such as pastries, bread, cereals,

and potatoes, along with beans and dairy products, have the highest insulin
indices, and should be avoided. You will find a detailed list of which foods to
eat, and which to avoid, in Chapter 7.
(Note: you wont find fresh vegetables on this list, but its a moot point. All
fresh vegetables not including tubers such as potatoes have an
extremely low insulin index, and make excellent clear-skin foods.)
If youd like to look up the glycemic load of other foods, visit the USDAs
nutrition database:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/
The above list is also included in the Appendix for easy reference.
The Dangers of Inflammation

What is inflammation? Simply put, its the bodys natural response to
attackers be they viruses, bacteria, chemicals, or (and this is key here)
foods that your body doesnt like. When inflammation works properly, it
helps your body fight off an attack by bringing in white blood cells and all
the warriors of your immune system. When its done fighting the infection, it
stops. The swelling goes down, the redness disappears, the wound heals.
But when it gets out of control, when it doesnt stop, it causes your body all
sorts of grievous problems including acne. You have acne because you
have systemic inflammation, an inflammation response that has torn loose,
and keeps going, going, going, like a rogue computer virus. It will destroy
you, if you do not stop in its tracks. Systemic inflammation is closely
associated with cancer, heart disease, arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome,
Parkinsons, Alzheimers... I feel like a broken record. Are you starting to see
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how absolutely critical it is to solve your acne if you want to live a long and
healthy life?
The Role of P. acnes Bacteria

Contrary to popular belief, P. acnes bacteria do not actually cause acne. In
fact, P. acnes isnt even required to get really bad inflammatory acne.16,17
They simply make the problem worse. Once your pores get clogged with
excess sebum and dead skin cells, an oxygen-deprived environment arises
thats a perfect home for P. acnes bacteria. (P. acnes bacteria are
anaerobic, meaning without oxygen they die if exposed to oxygen.
Theres little oxygen inside clogged pores, so P. acnes can thrive there.)
These bacteria feed on your sebum, and in the process create highly
inflammatory waste products. When your immune system is compromised,
as it is when youre stressed out or when you eat the foods outlined in
Chapter 4, you cant effectively fight off these P. acnes bacteria, and they
multiply rapidly inside your clogged hair follicles and cause severe
inflammation, redness, and swelling.
Foods That Cause Inflammation

In a little bit, Im going to share a bunch of ways to douse the fires of
inflammation, but first, I want to talk about which foods contribute the most
to this silent killer. Youd do well to stop eating these foods immediately if
you want to halt inflammation and see an almost immediate improvement in
your acne. (And, if you really follow this list well, permanent clear skin.)
Heres a list of some of the worst ones:
Sugar
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Vegetable oils (canola, sunflower, safflower, soybean, cottonseed, corn

oil)
Trans fats (commercial baked goods, margarine, fast foods, deep fried
foods)
Dairy (especially pasteurized, homogenized, feedlot-produced milk)
Feedlot-raised meat (artificial hormones, antibiotics, omega-6 fats)
Processed meats (nitrites, nitrates, other preservatives)
Alcohol (more than one glass of wine per day)
Refined grains and white flour
Food additives
These foods are found everywhere in our modern food landscape. Go to your
local grocery store, visit the middle 90% of the aisles, and start reading
ingredients: youll notice that certain ingredients pop up over and over:
vegetable oil, sugar, corn syrup, wheat flour, skim milk powder, sodium
nitrite, potassium sorbate, yellow 5, blue 1, red 6... the list goes on and on.
These things are not foods, they are food products. Would your greatgrandmother have recognized these things as food? No. (Well, dairy,
perhaps, but she would have eaten raw dairy, which is a whole different
subject.)
Increasingly, these highly inflammatory foods are forming the bulk of the
Westerners diet. Is it any surprise that diseases of inflammation are so
rampant in our society?
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Foods That Cool Inflammation

Alright, time for some antidotes. Heres a list of the most potent foods you
can eat to stop inflammation in its tracks:
Fish (wild-caught only, not farm-raised) for the exalted omega-3

fats
Ginger
Turmeric
Pomegranates (and other dark red fruits and vegetables)
Broccoli (and other dark green vegetables)
Rosemary
Basil
Cherries
Blueberries
Kelp (kombu, wakame, arame, dulse)
Shiitake mushrooms
Papaya
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sweet potato
Coconut oil
Fermented foods (live sauerkraut, kombucha, kimchi)
White tea
Free-range eggs
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By focusing on these foods, and avoiding the worst inflammatory foods, you
practically guarantee clear skin. Thats not an exaggeration. Thats how
powerful of an effect food has on acne.
On Supplements
You can find a lot of supplements on the Internet to help reduce
inflammation. However, from personal experience and all the research I have
done, I strongly advise against using supplements, with a few key
exceptions, because I think theyre a copout at best, and downright
dangerous at worst, increasing the toxic load on your body. The main issue
is that taking supplements distracts you from addressing the underlying
problem, which is what youre putting in your mouth. It just masks the
problem, like using acne medications. It prevents you from benefiting from
the wisdom of your body; it prevents you from seeing serious disease before
it hits you.
Ive seen it too often: people get obsessed with buying the perfect
supplements, and dont give a moments thought to the bulk of their diet.
They think they can simply make up for all the bad stuff by popping pills:
quercetin, resveratrol, fish oil, vitamin E, gamma-linoleic acid, enzymes,
echinacea, green tea extract, and CoQ10. Whats the next magic supplement
going to be?
Dont take enzymes; eat the right foods so your body produces its own
enzymes. Dont take curcumin; cook with whole turmeric. Dont take green
tea extract; drink green tea. Whenever you take an extract of something,
youre denying yourself the synergistic power of that nutrient in its original
context. Nutrition science has historically been one of the worst-practiced
sciences out there. Just because some study finds that taking a resveratrol
supplement reduces your chances of cancer doesnt mean you should run
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out and buy resveratrol; nutrients like this act in concert with other nutrients
when theyre still together in whole foods. Such whole foods have hundreds,
thousands of chemicals that interact in extremely complex ways were just
beginning to understand. These complex interactions will take lifetimes to
fully grasp. When you extract resveratrol from red wine, what else are you
losing in the process?
Nutrition science is a flawed, fledgling science, so it would be wise to remain
extremely skeptical of its conclusions. Use logic and reason to ask, is there
a better, simpler, more powerful way to accomplish this? So dont take
resveratrol; drink red wine instead.
And remember, nutritional supplements companies exists primarily to make
money, just like the dairy and grain industries. They are not interested in
the most efficient way to heal people; theyre interested in your cash. The
more stuff you buy from them, the better their bottom line. So theyre going
to do everything they can to make you come back for more, to keep you
buying the latest supplements. These companies jump on the opportunity to
create new breakthrough supplements whenever a new study comes out,
discovering some new chemical in pine needles that promises to add 20
years to your life. Save your money for real food, and support the people
that grow it.
In sum: dont try to take shortcuts. If you do, youll suffer for it later.
Shortcuts are for people who dont actually want to reach their goals.
Shortcuts are like get-rich-quick schemes; they glitter on the outside but
sting on the inside, leading you into pain and debt. If you take shortcuts with
your health, you might improve your acne now, but youll start running into
all sorts of health problems down the road. And youre worth more than
that.
Ultimately, the healthy way to live is the happy way to live.
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4
Genes and Acne
Devin, answer me this: I know someone who eats waffles for breakfast,
pizza for lunch, and burgers for dinner, every single day, and they still have
beautiful skin! Thats so unfair. I get acne no matter what I do. How does
that work?
I hear you. This can be extremely frustrating I know, I had a friend exactly
like this in college. You might struggle to eat really well, depriving yourself of
all those comfort foods and junky wonder pastries, and you still have acne,
while your friend munches away on a McChicken and fries and has nary a
spot on that crystal-clear face.
You might be tempted to think its just genes your friend got lucky, and
you got the short end of the stick. Theres a bit of truth to that, but in
reality, its way more complicated. And you have more power to change it
than you think.
The secret? Its called epigenetics.
Basically, you have about 20,000 genes, which are more or less set in stone.
All doctors know this. However, what most doctors dont yet acknowledge is
that genes are only part of the story. The fact is, the way your genes are
expressed changes dramatically with your diet and lifestyle. This strikes a
huge blow to modern diet, nutrition, health, and science as we know it, but
its still relatively unknown, because its such a cutting-edge science. Most
health professionals went to medical school long before we knew anything
about epigenetics.
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What is epigenetics? Quite simply, its control above the genes. Heres the
definition according to Wikipedia:
The study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype
caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.
English? Try this: your body can change the way your genes behave, and
you can pass those changes on to your offspring, without altering your
underlying DNA at all! Think about your genes as lightbulbs; epigenetics
gives you a dimmer control for each of your genes, so you can turn them on,
off, or dim them down for mood lighting.18
Why is this important for acne? Well, essentially, you can build up a reserve
of epigenetic wealth, by living in the healthiest environment possible; in
terms of the lightbulb metaphor, this means youve selectively turned on,
off, and dimmed all the lights (genes) to give the perfect ambience. Thats
epigenetic wealth, and it creates radiant health. When you have kids, you
pass on this wealth to them, so they too bloom with health. Your kids can
repeat the process, living in an outstanding environment, improving their
gene expression even more, and adding to that epigenetic bank account.
Theyll pass that on your grandkids. Essentially, with each successive
generation, your epigenetic bank account rises or falls; the influence of your
environment multiplies. This concept of epigenetic wealth is nothing other
than rapidly accelerated adaptation, or in other words, evolution without any
actual changes to DNA.
Back to your junk-food-eating friend: this person probably inherited a huge
reserve of epigenetic wealth when she was born, meaning that for many
generations, her ancestors had been living in healthy environments clean
air, traditional food, lots of sunshine, loving relationships, daily exercise, and
low stress.
You, like me, might not be so lucky.
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You and I may have inherited a depleted reserve of epigenetic wealth, and
consequently our gene expression suffers. Our genetic lighting is all wrong.
some lights that should be on for clear skin are actually off, and vice versa.
We tend to get acne more easily, as well as a range of other diseases. Cest
la vie. We have to take more extreme measures.
After all this, you might be feeling a little defeated. After all, if your bank
account is already overdrawn, what can you do but just continue to suffer
from acne? Fortunately, you have a lot more power than you think to rapidly
build back epigenetic wealth. You can build up that epigenetic bank account
by replicating living conditions to which humans are best adapted: eating the
optimum foods, living a happy and fun-filled life, getting lots of sun,
exercising regularly, and pulling the plug on stress. All these things combine
synergistically to create mountains of epigenetic wealth, which you can pour
into that bank account and start enjoying outstanding health which
includes, of course, perfectly clear skin!
So, it might be a little tougher for you than for your friend to achieve that
beautiful skin, but if you do tackle this challenge, you'll also be creating
healthy habits for the rest of your life. Your friend wont be quite so lucky.
While you continue your youth into your old age, your burger-eating-friend
has no impetus to change diet, and consequently vaporizes her inherited
epigenetic wealth like a spoiled princess. The epigenetic bank account can
easily be obliterated in one generation. Your friend is at risk of declining in
health later in life, developing fat around the waist, diabetes, arthritis, and
heart disease.
In other words, your friend is spending money, while youre earning it. Whos
going to be wealthier in 20 years?
For me, tackling acne was the first test on my road to seeking ultimate
health. I strive to add a little more to my epigenetic bank account every day.
My acne is completely gone, and while Im not yet where I want to be in
terms of overall health, I'm giving it all I've got. Step by step, slow and
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steady. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme its a smart and comprehensive

plan to gradually building up an impenetrable store of wealth.
If I hadn't had acne to begin with, I would probably still be eating puffed
wheat cereal and pasteurized, homogenized, feedlot-produced milk for
breakfast. Instead, I have found a diet and lifestyle that not only keep acne
away, but also give me thicker hair, keep me from getting sick even when
everyone around me has colds or the flu, and give me more energy, mental
clarity, and better all-around mood and approach to life.
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5
What Can Tradition Teach Us?
If you visit the Mbenga pygmies in the Congo basin, you wont find a spot of
acne. If you visit the Ach tribe of Paraguay, all youll find is flawless, clear
skin. How about the Kitavan Pacific Islanders? After examining 1200 of
them, acne expert Dr. Loren Cordain found not a single pimple.19
Visit your local high school, and youll find things a little different.
Why such a chasm of difference? Continuing on the theme of epigenetics,
the key difference here is environment. The environment these native
peoples live in their diet and everyday lifestyle differs absurdly from our
cozy Western civilized environment. Its truly night and day.
Lets take a closer look at the differences:
!
NATIVE TRIBES
WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Relaxed, easygoing life
Chronic stress
Anti-inflammatory diet
Pro-inflammatory diet
Lots of exercise, hunting and

gathering
Walking to the kitchen and back
Plenty of daily sun exposure
Little to no daily sun exposure
Whole, wild foods
Processed, industrial foods
Fish, wild vegetables, wild game,

berries
Fish sticks, canned corn, burgers,

candy
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Pure foods
Foods loaded with chemicals
High omega-3 fat consumption
Miserably low omega-3 fat

consumption
Surplus of vitamins and minerals
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
Clean, pure water
Chlorinated water with heavy

metals
Fresh air
Noxious, polluted air
Trees
Cubicles
Surrounded by nature
Surrounded by concrete
Is it any wonder that these traditional societies are not only completely
acne-free, but also free of most of the so-called diseases of civilization?
The cancers, the heart disease, the diabetes? Looking at the above
comparison, even someone with no knowledge of nutrition or health
whatsoever could tell you which group was likely to live the longest, and be
the healthiest.
My own experiences echo this disparity. I vividly remember a month I spent
in Tanzania back in high school, on a volunteer trip to set up computer labs
in secondary schools in the bush. I visited several times with Maasai tribes
to learn about their way of life, which was eroding away with the sands of
time as young people migrated to the city slums. They were extremely
generous people; during one of the visits, the Maasai spitted and roasted a
whole goat for us. It must have been a scrawny old geezer of a goat,
because you were still left with a mouthful of gristle after five minutes of
chewing. But the ceremony of it was moving. And not only were they
extremely gracious, but they also had beautiful skin. Not a scar on them, not
a pimple, not a cyst, nothing.
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On a very different trip, this time to Edinburgh, Scotland, I stopped in at a

Pizza Hut for a buffet lunch after a long stressful day of computer shopping
in a foreign country and dealing with no end of bank problems. I was further
saddened when I saw a teenager there, his face pockmarked into oblivion
with acne scars. I'm guessing that he, like most people his age, really
suffers for it. I bet it hurts his self-confidence, and consequently his
relationships. Yet there he was, chomping into a big slice of Pizza Hut
pepperoni pizza, after which he moved onto a plate of pasta with white
cheese sauce. I saw myself in him, my younger self, and I cringed inside,
wishing I could reach out to him and tell him what I now know.
This course is my attempt to reach out to you. To help you do what Ive
done. So you can enjoy the clear skin you were meant to have.
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6
The Four Worst Foods For Acne
This is the bread and butter of this whole program. There are four criminal
foods on the Most Wanted list for acne. If you start avoiding these foods
today, you will mostly likely see a huge improvement in days. You will see
pimples start to shrink and dry up, you will see redness and swelling go
down, and you will be well on your way to clear skin.
To put it succinctly: removing these foods from your diet will be the
single most powerful thing you can do to cure your acne. Its the
80% in the 80/20 equation. Its Occams Razor. Its the big stick. The
grenade launcher. The big kahuna. Remove these foods first, and you will
have done most of the work toward becoming clear once and for all.
Keep in mind that it may take up to 90 days, after completely removing
these foods from your diet, for you to finally stop getting new zits; this is
because comedones take up to 90 days to form into pimples from the day
they first become clogged. That said, you will see an almost instant
reduction in redness and swelling, which is practically as good as not having
any acne at all (because you can hardly see it).
Here we go in no particular order, the acne demons:
Acne Demon #1: Dairy

Dairy, especially dairy derived from feedlot, hormone-injected, antibioticloaded cows is probably the #1 acne-causing food. Dairy is absolutely loaded
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with IGF-1, other growth hormones intended for rapidly-growing baby calves
and which cause inflammation and acne in humans, artificial antibiotics and
hormones, difficult-to-digest proteins that turn your immune system against
itself and also fan the fires of inflammation, and the sugars lactose and
galactose, which damage your skin cells and blood vessels and (you guessed
it) worsen inflammation. Dairy causes acne on all fronts:
1. Dairy makes your skin secrete excess sebum

2. Dairy clogs your pores by binding dead skin cells inside your
hair follicles
3. Dairy promotes inflammation, leading to redness, swelling, and
nodular and cystic acne
Dairy also spikes insulin, even though it shouldnt, because it has an

extremely low glycemic index. It has an extremely low glycemic index of
15-30, but it actually spikes your insulin as much as white bread.20 Insulin
causes your liver to produce more IGF-1, so you get a double dose of this
potent acne-causing growth hormone: the bovine IGF-1 already present in
the milk PLUS the IGF-1 produced by your own liver as dairy spikes your
insulin.21,22
Now, some people consider raw, unpasteurized dairy to be a health food.
Some acne sufferers have no problem consuming raw dairy, be it raw milk,
raw goats milk, raw cheese, raw butter, or raw kefir. Personally, I think you
have to experiment with this to see how your body responds. Cut out all
dairy first, then when your acne is under control, experiment with raw dairy
if you wish. Unfortunately, its almost impossible to find raw milk, as its
illegal to sell in most states.23
(Side note: raw dairy is also easier to digest than pasteurized dairy, for
several reasons. First, raw dairy still contains lactase and other enzymes
which make it easier to digest. Second, and perhaps more importantly, raw
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dairy farmers typically use Jersey or Guernsey cows, which produce

predominantly A2 milk, instead of the problematic A1 type milk produced
by Holstein cows on large diary farms. Many people who have been
diagnosed as lactose intolerant are actually allergic to the milk protein BCM7
in A1 milk, and are not lactose intolerant at all, finding that they can drink
A2 milk with no problem.24 You would need to test this for yourself but
only once youve gotten your acne under control.)
So the only readily available dairy has been pasteurized and homogenized.
These processes subject the dairy to intense heat and pressure to make it
last longer on the shelf and in your refrigerator and to prevent the cream
from separating.25 These processes turn a possible health food into an utter
poison. If you want clear skin, you must stop eating dairy. Milk is the worst
dairy product for acne, so cut it out first, and avoid it with a vengeance.
Youll see me recommend eating butter later on, but thats because butter is
mostly fat and contains very little of the chemicals, hormones, and proteins
that cause acne.
For acne, the fastest solution is to go for 90 days completely dairy-free
(except for butter and ghee), both pasteurized and raw, including milk, kefir,
cream, cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, crme fraiche, sour cream,
yogurt, ice cream, milk chocolate, powdered milk, condensed milk, and
anything containing dairy products. Once you get rid of your acne
completely, then you might want to start experimenting with small bits of
raw cheese, raw grass-fed heavy cream, or full-fat plain yogurt, if youre
really missing dairy. That said, go 100% dairy-free for 90 days and you will
be truly amazed at the difference in your skin.
Note: you have to be especially vigilant when you cut out dairy, because its
addictive in the same way that opium is addictive. Dairy contains opioid
peptides, which activate opiate receptors in the brain via the same
mechanism that illegal drugs use. Dont give in cravings should disappear
after a week or two.
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Acne Demon #2: Sugar

Sugar gives you acne. Plain and simple. Sugar causes your blood sugar to
spike, releasing an insulin cascade as weve seen already, this causes your
skin to produce too much sebum and drives inflammation. Sugar also
glycates your cells as it travels through your bloodstream, damaging,
stiffening, and prematurely aging skin cells and blood vessels. Glycation is
largely responsible for wrinkles, as well, so you can kill two birds with one
stone by cutting out sugar. Acne and wrinkles, both.
Sugar can be extremely difficult to cut out if you eat it regularly. Why? Its
incredibly addictive. Shockingly, a 2007 study found that sugar is more
addictive than crack cocaine.26 That should be serious cause for worry,
because sugar is everywhere. Fruit juice, cereal, bread, Thai food, Chinese
food, pastries, doughnuts, candy, chocolate, soy milk, almond milk, dairy
products, sports drinks, energy bars the list goes on ad infinitum. Its
everywhere, its addictive, and its incredibly dangerous for your health.
Eating sugar makes your pancreas work overtime to produce enough insulin
to deal with the sugar; do this enough times, and your pancreas cant keep
up. You dont produce enough insulin, and what little you do produce doesnt
work very well because your cells become insulin-resistant. Eventually, your
fasting blood glucose rises just a little bit higher than it normally should be,
leading to constant, minor damage of all your bodys systems through
glycation. In contrast, on a low-sugar, low-glycemic diet, your immune
system has no trouble flushing out the toxic by-products of glycation called
AGEs, or advanced glycation end-products but on a moderate or highsugar diet, your immune system cant keep up, and the sugar constantly
attacks your body. This damage shows up most visibly in your skin, with
acne.
Sugar also reduces your circulatory systems effectiveness, making it more
difficult to pump blood and nutrients to all areas of the body, including the
skin. This is why people with diabetes go blind and develop numbness in the
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limbs. For acnes sake, you need a circulatory system thats working at full
capacity to transport all the required nutrients to your skin. That way, your
skin can reduce inflammation, fight off infection by P. acnes bacteria, and
work to stop lipid peroxidation and unclog your pores.
To sum up: if you eat sugar, your pores will become clogged and inflamed,
and youll worsen your acne. If instead you choose to avoid sugar, your
inflammation levels will fall, and your skin will start to heal itself naturally.
Acne Demon #3: Vegetable Oil

This is one cause of acne you might not have heard before. Vegetable and
seed oils, including canola, rapeseed, sunflower, safflower, soybean, corn,
and cottonseed oils, as well as shortening and margarine, contain alien fats
that wreak severe havoc on your body, including your skin. Youve heard
about trans fats, right? Trans fats completely destroy your cholesterol levels
and physically clog up your arteries. It goes without saying that you should
completely avoid them. However, most vegetable oils contain trans fats, due
to the extreme pressure, solvents, deodorizers, bleaches, and heat
processing required to extract and refine the oils.
Shocking fact: Chemical analysis shows that even bottles of organic,
expeller-pressed canola oil contain as much as five percent trans fats, plus
cyclic hydrocarbons (carcinogens) and oxyphytosterols (highly damaging to
arteries). 27
Five percent trans fats? This is heart-healthy canola oil were talking about!
These kinds of shocking findings start to make one wonder about the
intentions of vegetable-oil companies and their heart-healthy advertising
campaigns. Trans fat is one of the most heart-damaging food substances you
can eat.
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In fact, it would be more accurate to think of trans fats as zombie fats,

because they literally reproduce inside of you. Heat-damaged trans fats
zombify innocent fats in your body through free-radical chain reactions,
turning them into new zombie fats, spreading the plague and damaging your
DNA, your cell membranes, and all the good fats youve stored up for critical
functions.28
In addition, vegetable and seed oils contain excessive amounts of omega-6
oils and virtually no omega-3, a combination that leads to severe
inflammation. For thousands upon thousands of years, traditional huntergatherer societies our ancestors maintained an omega-3 to omega-6
ratio of 1:1. Today, our ratio is closer to 1:20. Such an overload of omega-6
fats signals your genes to produce severe, systemic inflammation.
Even worse, the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fats are especially vulnerable to
zombification by trans fats, because their chemical configuration makes
them extremely reactive. If youre already not eating much omega-3, and
what little you are eating gets scavenged and zombified by trans fats, youre
in serious inflammatory trouble. As this effect multiplies and compounds
itself, things get particularly scary in your skin, when the fatty acids in your
sebum start getting peroxidized and zombified too. Some acne researchers
are beginning to speculate that lipid peroxidation, via trans fats and free
radicals, sets the stage for all the other pathogenic factors in acne, including
creating a breeding ground for P. acnes and unleashing a cyclic, selfmultiplying cascade of inflammation.29
It turns out that vegetable oils also reduce the germ-fighting power of your
own sebum, making your skin even more vulnerable to colonization by P.
acnes.30 Normally, your sebum fights off invading pathogens with
antioxidants, enzymes, and immune cells. But it needs a key type of nutrient
to do so. When you eat vegetable oil instead of healthy saturated fats like
coconut oil, butter, and lard, youre depriving your skin of medium-chain
fatty acids, which are extremely potent bacteria-fighters that well dive into
later when we talk about coconut oil. Medium-chain fatty acids are highest in
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coconut oil, red palm oil, butter, lard, tallow, and meat fat. For now, just
remember: if you want to support your skin in fighting off Propionibacterium
acnes, toss out the vegetable oil, and use these healthy saturated fats
instead.
In fact, prior to 1910, the majority of dietary fats consisted of highly
saturated fats like butter, beef tallow, and lard. These fats have gotten
smashed, ridiculed, and lambasted with an absurd amount of bad press over
the last few decades, but the best new research is revealing all these fears
might just be unfounded. A recent meta-analysis, analyzing data from over
300,000 study subjects, found that there is no correlation between saturated
fat and heart disease.31,32 Instead, were now learning that butter, tallow,
and lard are actually some of the healthiest fats out there.33 Add to these
olive oil, coconut oil, red palm oil, and macadamia oil, and youll be eating
healthy fats that will nourish your skin, as well as protect you from other,
more sinister health problems like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Its
little wonder that rates of these diseases have risen steadily as weve eaten
more and more trans-fat-loaded vegetable oils, displacing healthy, traditional
saturated fats.
(Note: you may have heard that saturated fats cause inflammation. Its true
that when saturated fat accumulates in your body, it causes chronic
inflammation; however, as researchers from the Netherlands have shown,
saturated fat only accumulates in your body if you eat a high-glycemic diet.34
If youre eating a low-glycemic diet, as I recommend in this book, then
youve got nothing to fear from eating saturated fat your body will not let
it accumulate it, but instead will burn it for energy immediately.)
My advice: if you want clear skin, start treating vegetable oils like poison.
The trouble is, vegetable oils are in almost everything. Breads, cookies,
cakes, baked goods, pasta sauces, dipping sauces, margarine, shortening,
spreads, hummus, cereals, granola, candy, energy bars, salad dressings, and
anything else that comes in a package more often than not contains some
form of vegetable oil. Beware. Read labels carefully. Better yet, buy all your
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own fresh ingredients, and make your own sauces, salad dressings, and
dips. Theyll taste better that way.
Also, stay away from commercially-raised chicken, beef, and pork; according
to fats researcher Dr. Ray Peat, animals that eat polyunsaturated fat (corn,
grains) dont produce saturated fat like they normally would; instead, they
produce more polyunsaturated fat.35 So when you eat commercially-raised
meat, youre essentially loading yourself with soy and corn oil. Just because
it doesnt say vegetable oil in the ingredients doesnt mean it doesnt
contain any. Opt instead for free-range, organic chicken, grass-fed beef, and
pastured pork (if you can find it). Stores like Whole Foods are the best
places to find these, along with your local farmers market. With these
naturally-raised meats, youll be getting healthy saturated fat and a good
dose of omega-3s as well, instead of damaging, acne-causing vegetable oils.
In sum, vegetable oils are a huge problem for acne, and could help explain
why acne is so widespread in Western society. Recently, Ive seen a lot of
acne sufferers finding huge success by cutting out vegetable oils completely.
Some even find that they cure their acne completely, only by removing
vegetable oils. Everyones different, though, and for me and most likely for
you vegetable oils are only part of the acne problem.
So were going to stick to the shotgun approach, and fix everything at once
because thats the fastest route to clear skin.
Acne Demon #4: Gluten

Almost every food product containing vegetable oil will also contain gluten,
an extremely problematic protein for acne. Now, the first problem with
gluten grains (wheat, rye, barley, spelt, kamut, oats) is that they spike your
blood sugar, causing a rush of insulin and a surge of inflammation. However,
this is true of all grains. The huge problem specific to gluten is the gluten
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itself by recent accounts, a majority of the worlds population is sensitive

or allergic to gluten at some level. You may have noticed the recent rise of
Gluten-Free foods in your grocery store many stores have entire sections
dedicated to products without gluten. And its for a good reason: the world is
finally waking up to the dangers of this mischievous protein.
Essentially, when you eat gluten, your body tries to break it down into its
building blocks, called amino acids, just as it does with all proteins; the
catch is that most people lack the enzymes necessary to begin this process.
Gluten is a huge protein. When your body cant break it down, it passes right
through into your small intestine, damaging the villi on the intestinal wall
the tiny fingerlike protrusions that absorb nutrients from your digested food
and thereby damaging your ability to absorb nutrients. Nutrient
deficiencies can indeed lead to acne zinc, chromium, selenium, vitamin B5,
vitamin B6, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E are common ones.36 To
make matters worse, gluten then passes through your intestinal lining and
into your bloodstream, where it unleashes utter mayhem. Your body thinks
gluten is a poisonous, alien invader, and creates antibodies to fight it off. The
next time you eat gluten, it passes through your intestinal wall and triggers
your immune defenses. When this happens over and over, you put your
immune system on constant red alert, and it begins to attack healthy
tissues.
This is known as an autoimmune disorder, where your body attacks itself
because it constantly thinks its getting invaded by alien proteins, when in
reality youre just eating bread. In this way, gluten overtaxes your immune
system, and creates chronic inflammation as long as you keep eating it.
Youve heard of full-blown celiac patients? They can get severe, lifethreatening allergic responses if they eat gluten. For most people, the
allergic response is much lower-key, but this makes it worse; gluten
sensitivity becomes an insidious problem, because its never severe enough
to take you to the doctor.
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You can get a blood test for celiac disease and full-blown gluten allergies,
but you run the risk of getting a false negative. Youre more likely to have
sub-clinical gluten sensitivity than full-blown celiac disease, and these tests
simply arent sensitive enough to diagnose that. So you might test negative
and think that gluten is all fine and dandy, but could still have a strong
enough gluten sensitivity that just a small amount would make you break
out. Again, trust in the shotgun method here; it will get you clear skin the
fastest. Wait until after youve cleared up completely to start experimenting.
After all, whats more important to you? Eating gluten, or avoiding acne?
Summary
Alright, weve finished learning about the four worst foods for acne.
Congratulations! If you immediately cut these foods from your diet, you will
most likely see major improvements in one week or less, and completely
clear skin in just 90 days.
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7
How to Get Even Faster Results
If you want even faster results, there are a few more things you can cut out
of your diet. They are not quite as awful as the Top Four Worst Foods listed
above, but they are sufficiently damaging to your skin that cutting them out
as well can speed up the process of clearing your skin. Here they are:
Grains
Grains rob your body of minerals and vitamins, thus contributing to acne.
Whole grains are even worse. I know, demonizing whole grains is
tantamount to nutritional heresy, but it must be done. Here's why they're
such a problem: Whole grains are the seeds of plants. The mission of any
seed is to survive long enough to burrow its way into soil somewhere,
germinate, and grow into a new plant. If a seed gets digested by an animal,
guess what? The seed failed. So seeds have defenses lots of them. (Fruit is
an entirely different matter its preferred method of spreading seeds is
through animal feces, and thus fruits have co-evolved with animals to
delight the taste buds and nourish the body.)
Whole grains, however, are grasses, and prefer to spread seeds via the wind
and simple gravity. Whole grains have all of the seeds built-in defenses still
intact, including all kinds of compounds designed to damage you and
prevent you from fully digesting the seed. Grasses can't run away like
animals can, and they don't have claws or sharp teeth, so they defend
themselves with chemical weapons instead. These chemicals make you sick
and mineral-deficient, or at least prevent you from getting any nutritional
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value out of the seed, in the hopes that you'll stop eating it. Humans first
started refining grains to get around all these chemical barbs, and make the
grains easier to digest and assimilate, but recently we've swung back to
eating the whole seed, because of some well-meaning (but misguided) ideas
about fiber. Fiber is for old people with bowels that don't work. By some
accounts, high-fiber whole grains make you fiber-dependent, because you
have so much fibrous bulk pushing fecal matter through your intestines that
your poop-moving muscles forget how to do their job. Whole-grain fiber can
also be very sharp, and rips miniscule tears in your intestines as it travels
through. You get plenty of fiber from vegetables and fruits the soft, soluble
kind of fiber, completely safe for your intestines so skip the whole grains.
Your acne will be better for it, too, because you wont have the problem of
whole grains leaching important acne-preventing minerals like zinc and
magnesium from your body.
Whole wheat is really about the worst grain you can eat. Not only are you
blocked from digesting and assimilating much of the protein, starch and
minerals by all the seeds built-in defenses, you also get gluten to deal with,
which most people can't fully digest either. As I mentioned earlier, gluten
wreaks havoc in your intestines and unleashes a torrent of auto-immune
disease precursors, including thats right! inflammation and acne. So
grab your ass and toss the wheat flakes in the compost, and youll be two
steps and a leap closer to clear skin.
Beans & Legumes

Beans are like grains, in that theyre also seeds. They defend themselves
with enzyme inhibitors, phytates and other nasty toxins so that you wont
try to eat them. They use amylase and protease inhibitors to prevent you
from digesting their starch and protein, and then selfishly guard their
minerals with phytic acid so you can't absorb them. (This is why the
Nutrition Facts labels on grains and beans are so misleading, because they
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have absolutely no regard for whether we can actually absorb the vitamins
and minerals.) Phytic acid also accounts for why beans give you gas, and for
why you have to process or cook the bejeezus out of beans to be able to eat
them. Even then, they are starch-dense and nutrient-poor; in other words, a
low-quality food.
This includes soy, in all forms. Soybeans, tofu, soybean oil if it came from
the soybean plant, dont touch it. The healthy soy idea is a huge marketing
scam perpetrated by the soy industry to help move product, to convince
people that soy is a health food so that they will trip over themselves to
buy this lucrative cash crop in the form of tofu, tempeh, soy milk, soy
yogurt, soy oil, soy-based fake meat, and everything in between.
Heres a few facts about soy that they didnt tell you. Soy:
Inhibits zinc absorption (a key nutrient for clear skin)
Impairs cognition
Increases your risk of getting Alzheimers disease
Mimics estrogen, causing hormonal problems and altering menstrual
patterns (and hormonal problems lead to acne)
Doubles the risk of infants getting diabetes later
Depresses thyroid function, magnifying the toxicity of fluoride in your
water supply
Inhibits dopamine function
Makes it more difficult to form new memories
Increases the risk of birthing a deformed or disabled child
I could keep going, but how many reasons do you need to stay away from
this poisonous substance?
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In sum, beans also contribute to acne in a number of different ways.

Fortunately, I don't know many people who really just love beans, but if you
really can't live without them, then eat them once in a while but know that
every fart is a pimple in disguise.
For Vegetarians and Vegans

While my personal beliefs are that eating a vegetarian or vegan diet is not
optimal for health,37 I respect the humanitarian and ecological reasons for
doing so, and I respect your freedom to make your own choices. If you
choose to avoid meat and/or eggs for ethical, environmental reasons, or
otherwise, you will find the method of eating in this book a bit more difficult.
Heres what I recommend: avoid the Top Four Worst Foods completely
(dairy, sugar, vegetable oils, and gluten), and when you eat grains and
beans, process them in such a way as to remove the phytates, enzyme
inhibitors, aflatoxin, and lectins. One of the most effective methods of
processing grains is to soak the whole grains first before you cook them.
Quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat, amaranth, millet, and all the other nongluten grains are great options. Soak these grains overnight, preferably in
an acid medium: cover them with water and add some lemon juice, vinegar,
whey, yogurt, kefir, or buttermilk for acidity. After theyre done soaking,
rinse them with water to get rid of the released anti-nutrients, and then cook
them as you normally would.38
Sprouted grains are even better. Sprouted and then fermented grains are the
best, producing the healthiest and most digestible form of grains; this
method has been used for thousands of years by traditional cultures all
around the world. Fermenting grains is not always practical, but sprouting is
actually quite easy. You can buy your own home-sprouting kit 39 and be
eating fresh, nutrient-rich sprouts in no time.
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8
So What Can I Eat?
Weve covered a lot of this already, and Ill go over some greater detail in a
minute. But first, the Master List. In the column labeled CLEAR SKIN, youll
find a wealth of foods that promote clear skin and heal acne. In the column
labeled ACNE, youll find all the foods that youll want to avoid, as theyll
make your acne worse and slow your progress.
Note: this is not intended to be a be-all,

end-all codex. It is simply a guideline,
albeit a well-researched one. If anything
seems wrong to you, research it. Look it
up on Google. Likewise, this list is far
from comprehensive if theres a
particular food you cant find on the list,
dont panic! Try to fit it in based on your
intuition, and do a little internet research
if you get stuck, or shoot me an email at
info@masteryouracne.com.
Okay, here we go...
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The Master List of Clear Skin Foods

* indicates foods to be used with extreme caution, and only in very small
amounts
CATEGORY
DAIRY
MEAT
CLEAR SKIN
ACNE
hard cheeses* (small

amounts, raw only)
milk
heavy cream* (raw,

grass-fed only)
sweetened yogurts
plain yogurt* (raw, fullfat)
all seafood (wild-caught

only)
wild game
grass-fed beef
mystery meat (fish

sticks, chicken fingers)
grass-fed lamb
McDonalds
free-range chicken &

eggs
cheese
all pasteurized dairy
all feedlot-raised meat

processed meats
(salami, pepperoni,
ham, bacon)
marrow bones
organs & offal
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CATEGORY
FATS
VEGETABLES
CLEAR SKIN
Page 58
ACNE
butter (yes, butter)
margarine
coconut milk and oil
shortening
lard (yes, lard)
canola oil
walnut oil
safflower oil
avocado oil
sunflower oil
olive oil
soybean oil
red palm oil
corn oil
ghee
cottonseed oil
broccoli
canned vegetables
(added sodium,
preservatives)
kohlrabi
squash
mushrooms
kale
cabbage
brussels sprouts
potatoes (high glycemic)
cauliflower (white and

purple)
beets
carrots (all colors)
kelp (kombu, arame,
wakame, dulse)
red peppers
sweet potatoes (go for
the dark orange ones)
pretty much all other
fresh vegetables (go for
a rainbow of colors)
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CATEGORY
HERBS &
SPICES
(Note: fresh
herbs and
spices are
always better,
but dried is
good too, as
long as theyre
organic, or at
least nonirradiated)
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CLEAR SKIN
ACNE
ginger
irradiated herbs
turmeric
excessive salt
rosemary
MSG
basil
food coloring
garlic
preservatives
oregano
sage
cracked pepper
cayenne pepper
cinnamon
nutmeg
cloves
cardamom
cilantro
parsley
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CATEGORY
FRUITS
(fruits in the
Acne
category have
a high glycemic
load and
should be
avoided)
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CLEAR SKIN
ACNE
blueberries
bananas
raspberries
mangoes
strawberries
dates
cherries
lychee
aa
table grapes
goji berries
persimmons
pomegranates
raisins
lemons
dried fruit
wine grapes
apples
peaches
nectarines
plums
avocados
blackcurrants
guavas
pineapple (fresh)
lemons
limes
oranges
papaya
quince
rhubarb
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CATEGORY
NUTS &
SEEDS
SWEETS
Honey, dark
chocolate, and
unsweetened
fruit preserves
must be eaten
in extreme
moderation.
They still have
a high glycemic
index.
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CLEAR SKIN
ACNE
brazil nuts
Planters
macadamias
all roasted nuts and

seeds
honey* (raw, unheated,

unfiltered)
refined honey
dark chocolate* (at

least 70%)
brown sugar
unsweetened fruit
preserves*
palm sugar
almonds
walnuts
hazelnuts
pine nuts
sesame seeds
peanuts (actually
legumes, not nuts)
peanut butter
toasted sesame seeds
pumpkin seeds
chia seeds
nut butters (any of the
above)
white sugar
molasses
date sugar
turbinado sugar
coconut sugar
agave syrup
stevia
corn syrup
maple syrup
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CATEGORY
GRAINS &
FLOURS
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CLEAR SKIN
ACNE
coconut flour
wheat
almond flour
rye
barley
oats
millet
amaranth
brown rice
white rice
corn flour
tapioca starch
sorghum flour
BEANS &
LEGUMES
(none)
all beans
all lentils
peas
peanuts
cashews
BEVERAGES
red wine (one glass per

day)
coffee
green tea
fruit juice
white tea
soft drinks
herbal tea
energy drinks
water
beer
black tea
alcohol
Along with this book, you should have gotten a separate PDF file of this list
so you can easily print it out and stick it on the fridge or take it with you to
the grocery store.
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How NOT To Use This List

As I mentioned earlier, this list is absolutely not The Holy Bible of What
Thou Shalt Eat and What Thou Shalt Avoid Like the Plague. This list
represents an ideal scenario. For most people, the ideal scenario is just
that an ideal and sometimes an impractical or prohibitively difficult one.
People get so uptight about idealistic diets, worrying that if they slip even
once, all their efforts will have been wasted. (I often fall into this trap
myself, and Im learning to control it.) This is just plain wrong. The healthier
you eat, the better your acne will get its a spectrum, not black and white.
The point is, do the best you can.
If you find yourself absolutely lusting over bread, or your friend bakes
cookies and you cant say no, then dont say no. Indulge once in a while if
you feel the urge. Make the choices for yourself. Some people work better
sticking 100% to the plan, finding that they tumble down a slippery slope if
they indulge just once; others do fine taking breaks from time to time to
indulge, and yet still manage to stay on track 90% of the time. Bottom line:
its your life, so do what you want. Experiment, see what works for you, and
dont let anyone else tell you otherwise. Your own experience is your best
teacher.
Organic vs. Conventional

Youve heard this before: go organic. Organic produce is generally packed
more densely with nutrients, and doesnt have all those endocrinedisrupting, hormone-emulating pesticides that conventional produce is
loaded with. Pesticides not only disrupt your hormones, but also create free
radicals that damage your skin in the same way that trans fats do. A great
place to find cheap organic produce in bulk is your local farmers market. You
might also try getting a CSA box its cheap and saves time! And youll get
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a bunch of interesting foods that take some creativity to use, and will
expand your culinary vocabulary.
By some accounts, its more important to go organic when choosing meats,
because pesticides bio-accumulate in animal tissues. Imagine a cow eating
30 pounds of pesticide-laden hay every day, and you can see why. The
pesticides build up in the animals fat stores, giving you a mega-dose of
pesticides when you finally eat the meat. Compare that to just eating a red
pepper thats been sprayed with pesticides, and the magnitude of the
problem becomes clear. Whenever possible, choose meats from animals that
have been raised on pesticide-free feeds. (Organic, 100% grass-fed meat is
by far the best option.)
Now, if its make-or-break between getting organic and conventional, of
course go conventional. Eating fresh produce will still do your acne worlds of
good, even if it has some pesticide residues.
Even better, heres a list of the Dirty Dozen, the twelve foods that get the
worst pesticide treatment and consequently foods you should buy
organic:40
Apples
Celery
Strawberries
Peaches
Spinach
Nectarines
Grapes
Bell peppers
Potatoes
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Blueberries
Lettuce
Collard greens
And heres the list of Clean foods, the produce items that rarely get
pesticide treatments, and that you dont have to worry about buying
organic:41
Onions
Sweet corn
Pineapples
Avocado
Asparagus
Sweet peas
Mangoes
Eggplant
Cantaloupe
Kiwi
Cabbage
Watermelon
Sweet potatoes
Grapefruit
Mushrooms
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Note: some of these foods are on the Acne Foods list, and should be
avoided at the beginning when youre trying to get your acne under control.
This is simply an overall reference for organic vs. conventional produce, and
not specific to which foods contribute to inflammation and acne and which
foods combat them.
Hidden Ingredients
Also, keep in mind that many of the things you find in the grocery store are
processed foods, including sauces, breads, crackers, cookies, cakes, baked
goods, dips, frozen dinners, instant soups, canned meals, and all manner of
other concoctions. You have to read the ingredients. Just because a jar of
pasta sauce says 100% Natural doesnt mean its going to cure acne. To
this day, I have immense difficulty finding pasta sauces without sugar; so I
choose to make my own, with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh rosemary,
olive oil, olives, mushrooms, cracked pepper, lemon, and plenty of garlic.
And let me tell you, its a world of difference.
This is a theme: the more you make your own meals, using raw, whole-food
ingredients from the organic and free-range sections of your grocery store
or better yet, your local farmers market the more control youll have over
what you put in your body, the faster youll cure your acne, and the healthier
youll be. Not to mention that flavors are more intense, textures are crisper,
and roasts are more savory when you make them yourself. Skip the
restaurants, skip the pre-made meals; if you absolutely dont have time,
either pick up a time management book (Getting Things Done by David Allen
is one of the best), or go to the deli at Whole Foods or your local organic
grocery. Theyre more likely to use Clear Skin foods and less likely to
sneak in Acne foods, but you still have to be careful and read the
ingredient lists.
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Eat Like Royalty

Another important thing to keep in mind: were not interested in deprivation
diets here. Deprivation diets set you up to fail in fact they practically
guarantee it, because of the way the human brain works. If your
subconscious desires and cravings arent met, they will easily overpower any
rules or guidelines in your head. So were going to focus on ways to reduce
these cravings, and to help you get more satisfaction than youve ever
gotten out of food before satisfaction that runs the gamut from the surface
level of taste all the way to the deepest cellular level.
The best way to guarantee your success with this way of eating the best
way to eat your way to clear skin is to eat relatively low-carb. And if you
look at the list above, youll have no trouble eating low-carb if you stick to
the Clear Skin foods and avoid the Acne foods. I dont have space to go
into all the science of low-carb diets here, as the subject merits an entire
book in itself check the Resource Guide for some excellent books on the
topic. Whats important for us is that lowering your carbohydrate intake
accomplishes two main goals:
It reduces cravings, making it easier to stay the course with this diet.
It reduces inflammation, by controlling your blood sugar and insulin,

and thereby reduces acne.
If youve never tried eating low-carb before, the basic thing to keep in mind
is that you have to replace those carbs with satisfying foods, so that you
dont deprive your body of calories and satisfaction. That means dont eat
just a salad for lunch, unless you load it with olive oil, chicken, salmon,
olives, almonds, walnuts, and avocados. That means eat a lot of fat and a lot
of protein. Eat lots of fatty meat, lots of healthy oils and fats, lots of fish,
and modest amounts of nuts and seeds (no more than a handful or two per
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day). You are not depriving yourself with this style of eating youre giving
yourself the most nourishing, satisfying, delicious food youve ever eaten.
(Note: if you find yourself getting low in energy after a week of eating lowcarb, try adding more sweet potatoes or even some brown rice just make
sure to soak the brown rice overnight before you cook it, as this will
deactivate much of the damaging phytates and enzyme inhibitors. Some
peoples bodies just need more calories to enjoy optimum energy levels I
am one of those people myself, so I make sure to eat some starchy
vegetables, root vegetables, sweet potatoes, and soaked brown rice.)
(Another note: If you eat this way, and you currently weigh more than you
would like to, you will notice your weight drop off effortlessly as your acne
goes away. No calorie-counting, I promise. It really, really works.)
This style of eating takes a deep shift in perspective. That will take time.
Here are a few ideas, though: think red curry, with vegetables, shrimp and
loads of coconut milk; or try
acorn squash doused in
butter and cinnamon,
alongside a cardamom-spiced
pork roast. Or king crab legs
in a butter-lemon sauce, with
steamed mussels and
tomato-basil bisque.
One of my typical lunches: red curry with

shrimp, vegetables, and loads o coconut milk
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Bottom line: live it up. Low-fat, calorie-restriction diets are for masochists.
But thats not us. No, were going to eat like royalty.
Tricks to Save Money

You might be asking, But Im not royalty! How can I afford all this? Organic
produce and grass-fed meat is so expensive! This is an excuse, cleverly
disguised as a legitimate complaint. I apologize if I sound harsh; my goal in
writing this course is not to make friends, but to help you cure your acne,
once and for all. Saying you can't afford to buy high-quality food is like
saying you don't have time for your kids. You have to make time, by
siphoning it off from other activities like watching TV and fooling around on
Facebook. Similarly, you can easily make money by cutting unnecessary
costs, making your own lunch instead of eating out, and saving loads of
money on medical bills that you won't need to pay anymore because not
only do you have clear skin, but you're in ultimate health too, and you dont
get sick. If the money thing is still a sticking point for you, heres a few ways
to get creative:
Buy fish straight from the fishermen (or the fishmongers at the
market)
Buy meat from a local farm or meat-share in large amounts, like an

eighth of a cow, and store it in your chest freezer
Get an organic CSA box
Scout out deals at your local farmers market
Eat canned fish instead of fresh fish sardines in olive oil, mackerel in
water, herring in tomato sauce, or salmon with bones (stay away from
tuna its loaded with mercury and PCBs). You can make delicious
dishes with canned fish with paprika, olive oil, fresh herbs, olives,
eggs, and a little creativity!
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Buy grass-fed organs and soup bones from your local butcher or
grocery theyre cheaper, and packed with way more nutrients than
expensive lean cuts of meat.
There are tons of ways to eat this way on a shoestring Im sure you can
come up with loads more if you set your mind to it. A few other things to ask
yourself: how much are you paying for acne medications now? How much
does laser scar removal cost? How much life energy and happiness does
acne cost you every day, every month, every year? Consider buying healthy,
organic food an investment in your health, for now and for the rest of your
life. It's worth it, and will really be worth it in a few decades, when your
pizza-eating, Coke-guzzling friends get clogged arteries, arthritis, diabetes,
and thinning hair. Invest in yourself. This is like health insurance, except
more fun.
Benefits of Butter
To make things easier, I hereby give you license to eat as much butter as
you want, as long as its grass-fed. Look for Kerrygold or Organic Valley
Pasture Butter, or raid your local farmers market. Salted is fine it tastes
better, and the amount of salt is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
You might be asking yourself, Surely butter isnt a health food? And I
answer, contrary to popular wisdom, butter does not give you heart disease
or cancer, and in fact protects against these, along with a host of other
benefits:
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in grass-fed butter fights cancer
Fat-soluble vitamins A, E, and K cool inflammation
Anti-stiffness factor protects your joints
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Activator X helps your body absorb minerals
Antioxidants fight free radical damage
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Special note about CLA: this healthy fatty acid has strong anti-cancer and
anti-inflammatory properties. But butter made from grain-fed cows has very
little CLA in it. In fact, grass-fed butter contains 300-500% the amount of
CLA as conventional grain-fed butter.
For more on butter, go here:
http://paleodietlifestyle.com/the-many-virtues-of-butter/
Eat butter. Lots of it. If you have trouble eating enough vegetables like I do,
try cooking them in butter, and then douse them in butter again before you
eat them. You will suddenly start looking forward to eating those vegetables.
Butter truly makes everything better from eating vegetables to curing
acne.
Educate Yourself
To learn more about this style of eating, and even more importantly, about
what to cook, I urge you to pick up a few of the diet / cookbooks listed in
the Resource Guide. Three fantastic places to start are Deep Nutrition,
Nourishing Traditions, and Primal Body, Primal Mind.
Trust me: eating this way takes some getting used to, but it is not hard to
maintain. My food tastes richer and better, I feel full and satisfied and no
longer have the urge to snack between meals, and I dont have to eat as
often so I free up time that I used to spend buying and cooking food. And
most importantly, my acne stays away.
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9
Supplements
Ill say it once: supplements are crutches. They are a temporary solution,
while you work on getting the real underlying problem fixed your diet and
lifestyle. Some people use supplements to great effect, and some people
skip them entirely and just go straight to the heart of the problem. Its up to
you.
In the long run, though, if you take supplements but keep eating the same
acne-causing diet, its like having a broken leg that never heals; you have to
keep using crutches forever. If you stop using crutches, you cant walk. Its
the same with supplements and acne; if you stop using them, your acne
comes back, unless you heal the deep, underlying problems. (Plus, crutches
are a pain in the ass. So are pills. You want to get to the point where you
dont have to take any pills at all, where you dont need crutches, where
youre running free like Forrest Gump.)
If you do take supplements, remember this: the supplement industry is
primarily motivated by profits, just like the dairy and grain industries, and
just like tobacco companies. Its important to understand that supplement
companies capitalize on the widespread fear in people that key nutrients
might be missing, and thus they must take supplements in order to be
healthy. However, by eating the diet outlined in this course, you are virtually
guaranteeing that you will exceed recommended daily intakes (RDIs) of all
vitamins and minerals every single day. Personally, I average 300% or more
on all RDIs by following this diet. So, for the most part, supplements are a
waste of your money. As I explained earlier, when you divorce nutrients from
their whole-food contexts, you deprive yourself of the complex network of
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enzymes and co-factors that aid in assimilation and amplify the effectiveness
of the target nutrient.
That said, there are a few key supplements that acne sufferers typically
benefit from. In fact, some people cure their acne completely simply by
taking the following three supplements. After everything I just said, though,
why would I be recommending supplements now? Well, because of our
modern food landscape and lifestyles, we are likely to be deficient in the
following three nutrients, all of which play a huge role in acne prevention.
Omega-3s (EPA)
One of the most common mistakes here is taking flax oil for omega-3
benefits. The problem is, flax oil has plenty of ALA, or alpha-linoleic acid, but
it doesnt actually contain EPA or DHA, the animal-derived forms of omega-3
fatty acids. And of all omega-3 fatty acids, EPA has the strongest antiinflammatory effect, and this is really the one that matters most for acne.
Flax oil is commonly touted as a healthy omega-3 oil, but the reality is that
it doesnt have nearly the same inflammation-reducing benefits as EPA. And
contrary to popular belief, your body cannot synthesize EPA or DHA you
need to ingest them.42 Chickens, on the other hand, can synthesize EPA and
DHA when they are fed flaxseed so buy omega-3 eggs instead of normal
eggs. The best source of EPA, of course, is fatty fish and fish oil.
Here are some of the other benefits of true, animal-derived EPA in healing
acne:
Reduces redness and puffiness of acne lesions
Increases skin cell hydration, making your skin softer
Reduces stress, cutting off excess oil production in the skin
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Reduces skin cell overproduction, preventing pores from clogging
Balances hormone production, especially androgens, reducing oil

production
Fish oil is the most potent natural source of EPA available. Typical fish oil,
unconcentrated, is about 20% EPA by volume.
There are many other reasons besides acne to take fish oil:
Less joint pain
Improved mood 43,44
Reduced depression
Stronger, fuller hair
Better brain function
Improved fertility in men45
More energy
Improved focus and alertness 46
Improved cholesterol
Fat loss 47,48
That's a key theme in this course by improving your acne, you're going to
be greatly improving your overall health as well. And fish oil can be a huge
factor in that.
This is important: if you suffer from depression, its especially critical that
you take fish oil. New research is starting to show that depression actually
shares some of the same root causes as acne including inflammation.49,50
This is a breakthrough finding, which starts to illuminate the complex acne-
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depression-brain-inflammation relationship. By treating one with fish oil, you

can treat both, because theyre synergistically linked.
A note on dosage: recommended intakes on fish oil bottles are far too low to
see significant acne-healing benefits. To get the maximum benefit from fish
oil's powerful anti-acne properties, aim for 10 one-gram fish oil capsules
every day, or 3-4 tsp of liquid fish oil.
That's going to give you 1.5-2.0g of EPA every day. Beyond this amount,
there's no scientific data to support any further benefit.
Stay away from cod liver oil. Cod liver oil is packed with vitamin A, which
sounds like a good thing, except that its possible to reach toxic levels of this
vitamin if you consume cod liver oil every day. Stick to regular fish oil, or
fish oil concentrate. (If you go the fish oil concentrate route, make sure you
adjust your dosage so you still get 1.5-2.0g of EPA every day.)
Other tips: look for fish oil capsules that are tested free of PCBs and
mercury. In today's polluted oceans, fish bioaccumulate all sorts of nasty
chemicals and heavy metals into their fatty tissues, so it's critical to get fish
oil that's tested free of these harmful substances. (Tested free usually
means the levels of mercury and PCBs are in fact detectable, but are so
vanishingly small that your body will have no trouble detoxifying and
eliminating them.)
A word of warning: when you start taking fish oil, you may experience "fishy
burps." This happens to a select few. The solution is simple: switch to
"enteric-coated" fish oil capsules. This type of capsule passes through your
stomach intact, only breaking down when it reaches your small intestine.
This usually prevents fishy burps.
It doesnt matter what brand you buy, as long as it says its been tested free
of mercury and PCBs.
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Unless you eat fish at least a few times a week, make a point to take fish oil
its one of the fastest, most powerful supplements you can take to start
improving your acne. Note that fish oil is a stopgap measure; once you get
into the rhythm of eating described in this book, you wont need to take fish
oil, because you wont be creating any new acne in the first place.
Vitamin D
How good would an acne book be if it didnt talk about vitamin D?
Excuse the rhyme. In all seriousness, liquid sunshine, also known as vitamin
D, plays a major role in healing and preventing acne, and chances are that
youre not getting enough of it. In fact, serum vitamin D levels have been
steadily declining over a number of decades, and 75% of American adults
are clinically deficient. Heres what vitamin D does for you, and why you
should be very concerned if youre not getting enough. Vitamin D:
Boosts your immune system, often fighting off flu infections as

effectively as flu shots
Improves mood, fights depression
Cools inflammation, reducing acne
Allows you to absorb calcium, preventing osteoporosis (vitamin D is

required for this)
Fights cancer by taming the wild reproduction of cancer cells
Reduces respiratory infections
Reduces wrinkles and makes your skin soft, strong, and smooth (the
glow)
Relieves body aches by reducing muscle spasms
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Prevents diabetes by controlling your insulin response (also benefiting

acne)
You must get enough of this vitamin, for your health and longevity, and
especially for your acne. Your body makes all the vitamin D it needs for a
few days in just 10-15 minutes of full-body sun exposure (think: swimsuit),
depending on your latitude and skin pigmentation. The darker your skin, and
further away from the equator you live, the longer youll need to stay in the
sun. Avoid most sunscreens, as they prevents your skin from producing
vitamin D, poison your skin with parabens, chemicals, and preservatives,
and clog your pores. I only use sunscreen after Ive been in the sun long
enough to get my maximum vitamin D dose for the day (well before
sunburn), and I only use oil-free, non-comedogenic suncreens, with no
parabens or other harmful chemicals. Theyre more expensive, but they
lessen the toxic load on your body, which is a chief concern for any acne
sufferer.
On any day that you dont get sunshine which for most people will be the
majority of days take a vitamin D supplement. This is one of the only
supplements youll find me recommend in this whole course. Vitamin D is
just too critical to your health to skimp on, and too many people live in
rainy, cloudy climates for much of the year to be able to get enough vitamin
D naturally. (Take it from me I grew up in Seattle, grey and rainy capital of
the States!)
Look for vitamin D3 at around a 5,000 IU concentration per pill, and take
one per day. As of 2011, the FDAs recommended daily allowance (RDA) of
vitamin D is a paltry 400 IU, but the latest research shows that this is not
even close to your bodys actual need, and there are groups of concerned
scientists trying to lobby the FDA to raise their recommended intake. In just
10-15 minutes of sun exposure, your skin produces 10,000 IU of vitamin D,
so taking 5,000 IU per day is absolutely no problem. And you dont have to
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worry about toxicity, because youd need to take over 50,000 IU per day for
several months before approaching toxic levels.51
(Make sure youre getting cholecalciferol, also known as vitamin D3. You
may run across ergocalciferol, or vitamin D2, but the majority of the current
research suggests that vitamin D3 is much more potent and effective.)
Zinc
Zinc, like vitamin D, is a key factor in acne, so you want to make sure youre
getting enough. Zinc is a trace mineral essential to all forms of life because
of its fundamental role in gene expression, cell development and
replication.52 Zinc is the 24th most abundant element in the Earth's crust.
Its also the second most common trace mineral in the body. And yet,
according to a 2004 study by the World Health Organization, 31.7% of the
worlds population is zinc-deficient.53 Thats more than two billion people.
Zinc deficiency is especially common in people who eat large amounts of
beans, legumes, and whole grains. These foods contain phytic acid, which
binds zinc to itself and prevents you from absorbing it. Vegetarians and
vegans are at an even greater risk for zinc deficiency, because the zinc from
plant foods is four times more difficult to absorb than zinc from meat.54
Symptoms of zinc deficiency include:
frequent colds or infections
white spots on your fingernails
dry skin
hangnails
hair loss
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increased allergies
diarrhea
loss of sex drive
infertility
slow wound healing
acne
While the exact mechanisms are unknown, zinc most likely benefits acne by
ferrying vitamin A from your liver to your skin and by regulating your bodys
hormonal balance.55 In addition, a recent study found that zinc facilitates
apoptosis, or pre-programmed cell death, which is a natural part of your skin
renewing itself; if apoptosis is delayed, as in the case of zinc deficiency, skin
cells stick together instead of dying and sloughing off like they should, which
leads to clogged pores.56 (Like zinc, isotretinoin, the active ingredient in
Accutane, also uses this mechanism of cell apoptosis to treat acne.57 )
Finally, zinc powerfully influences gene expression, making it a key weapon
in our epigenetic arsenal.58
How do you know if you're zinc deficient? Well, unfortunately, zinc
blood tests are notoriously unreliable, because zinc is found mostly
inside cells rather than in the blood. The best thing to do is to boost your
zinc intake for a few weeks, and if your acne improves, it's safe to say you
might have been deficient.
Youve got three choices here:
Eat foods high in zinc
Supplement zinc
Both
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I recommend the third option. Zinc is incredibly difficult to absorb on the

whole, so making sure you get enough is vitally important. Supplementing
with zinc can quickly benefit acne-prone skin, and because zinc deficiency
rates are so high, you dont have much to lose. That said, I dont consider
supplementing zinc to be a long-term solution, for the same reason I advise
against most supplements its a quick fix, and since its isolated from the
naturally-occurring co-factor and enzyme complex found in whole foods, you
probably wont absorb it or use it as well as zinc from whole foods. But its a
good idea for a month or two.
At this point, it seems that the most easily absorbed form is zinc picolinate,
much more so than zinc gluconate or zinc citrate. This is because your body
forms zinc picolinate naturally from foods zinc combines in the intestines
with picolinic acid, which is secreted by the pancreas. This is a compound
requiring vitamin B6 for production. The zinc picolinate complex is then
transported across the absorptive cells of the intestine, then to the liver
where some is stored.
If you can't find zinc picolinate in your local health food or
supplement store, order it from Amazon. Take 25-40mg per day for the
maximum benefit. Make sure you dont exceed 50mg per day, because youll
risk copper deficiency.59
Note: do not take zinc on an empty stomach. It frequently causes nausea
unless taken with food. So take it mid-way through a meal or right after, and
you'll most likely prevent nausea. Zinc picolinate, in comparison to other
forms, is also the easiest on the stomach another reason to choose this
form over zinc citrate or gluconate.
You might also want to increase your whole-food zinc intake:
BEST SOURCES (high concentration and easy to absorb):
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Oysters
Chicken, turkey, all poultry
Clams
Liver
Pork
Salmon
Beef
Lamb
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MODERATE SOURCES (high concentration, but difficult to

absorb):
Spirulina
Sunflower seeds
Pumpkin seeds
Nuts
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10
Digestion and Gut Health
With recent science, were beginning to see a critical relationship between
having a healthy gut and enjoying clear skin. A 2008 study done on over
13,000 adolescents found that acne sufferers are much more likely to have
gastrointestinal problems, including constipation, bloating, low stomach acid,
acid reflux and halitosis (bad breath).60 No direct studies have been done on
acne sufferers and gut flora, but a related study on rosacea illuminated a
possible key factor: its called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or
SIBO for short.61
Heres how it works: normally, your small intestine is densely populated with
beneficial bacteria that help to break down food, transform nutrients into
new ones that the human body cant synthesize by itself (e.g. vitamin B12),
and protect the delicate lining of the small intestine.
However, a mix of factors can cause an overgrowth of harmful bacteria in
your small intestine, resulting in a die-off of your beneficial-bacteria
warriors, and hence the term small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. The
symptoms of SIBO? Bloating, diarrhea, malnutrition, malabsorption, and
weight loss. Oh, and acne. Big time. Ill get to that in a minute.
SIBO causes a cascade of negative effects, including intestinal permeability.
If youll remember, intestinal permeability means that food particles can
actually pass through the intestinal wall and into your blood stream, causing
a hyperactive immune response, auto-inflammatory disease, and systemic
inflammation a severe cause of acne.
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What causes SIBO? According to one study, causes include constipation, low
stomach acid, and a compromised immune system.62 You can see a cyclic
pattern here these are the same problems that were found in acne
sufferers in the 2008 study mentioned above. The reality is, these problems
are not actually causes of SIBO; they are links in a chain of events beginning
with diet and lifestyle, as is SIBO itself.
Heres an example of a real cause: stress. A stressful job, a stressful
commute, a stressful relationship, even watching the news it doesnt
matter, it all contributes. Stress kills off Lactobacilli, beneficial bacteria in the
gut, and allows bacteria such as E. coli to move up into the small intestine,
multiply rapidly, and cause problems. (E. coli occurs naturally in the large
intestine, but in relatively small numbers; it starts to cause damage when it
multiplies out of proportion and moves up into the small intestine.)
According to a 2008 study done in Sweden, "intestinal bacteria have the
ability to sense a stressed host and up-regulate their virulence factors when
opportunity knocks." 63 These virulence factors are toxic by-products
produced by these harmful bacteria, and they cause unchecked
inflammation. In short? When you're stressed out, bad bacteria in your
intestine multiply unchecked and turn nasty, leading to a cascade of
problems that eventually leads to acne.
Stress also slows down intestinal motility, leading to constipation another
factor in SIBO, and another gastrointestinal problem commonly associated
with acne.
The study citing constipation as a cause of SIBO is misleading, because
constipation itself is an effect of diet and stress. Eating dairy, eating too
much grain-based insoluble fiber, not ingesting a proper balance of calcium,
magnesium, and potassium, and general stress are the real causes of
constipation, which in turn leads to SIBO, and eventually to acne.
The gut-acne relationship is complex, as is acne as a whole; but that doesnt
mean youre powerless. By eating the diet prescribed in this book, managing
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stress, taking vitamin D, zinc, and fish oil, and following the other tips in
Chapter 11, you will be giving your gut the tools and resources it needs to
heal itself, restore optimal digestion, and thereby improve your skin.
If you fail to see results after these changes, or you still experience
gastrointestinal problems, consider supplementing with probiotics to restore
gut health.64 One of the highest-quality probiotic supplements currently
available is made in Japan; each batch undergoes a 3-year culturing process,
and the specific mix of bacteria is more complex and effective than most
brands of probiotic supplements. The brand is called Dr. Ohhiras Probiotics
and can be found on Amazon.com. Its more expensive, but its worth it. If
cost is an issue, go with a cheaper brand with a 5-star review on Amazon
(after many years of buying products online, Ive come to the conclusion
that the Amazon star rating is one of the most reliable judges of quality out
there). Again, this is a last resort; I typically advise against supplements
because theyre expensive and a pain in the ass to take every day.
A better solution might be to simply eat more fermented foods, such as
sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha. Ive taken quite a liking to sauerkraut,
and kombucha is now one of my favorite drinks. The kimchi served at
authentic Korean restaurants is to die for. When you buy fermented foods,
make sure youre getting live bacteria much commercial sauerkraut, for
example, has been pasteurized before bottling, killing all the beneficial
bacteria. Check your local health food store, as they tend to stock all manner
of strange but delicious fermented foods, with an emphasis on the live food
factor.
In summary, eating the wrong foods, not getting a proper calcium/
magnesium/potassium balance, and getting stressed all contribute to SIBO
and impaired gut health. Your digestion suffers, bacteria multiply wildly in
your small intestine and cause problems, and you get acne. Restoring proper
gut health is paramount for curing acne. By following the diet and
supplement recommendations in this book, your gut health with most likely
restore automatically; you can supplement probiotics if you need extra help.
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11
The Last Few Keys to Clear Skin
For most of this book, Ive focused predominantly on diet. And while diet is
perhaps the biggest player in acne, there are a few other important lifestyle
points that you wont want to miss. Try combining the above food guidelines
with the lifestyle choices below, and youll be acne-free in the shortest
possible amount of time.
Sleep
Getting enough sleep is absolutely critical to achieving and maintaining clear
skin. A 2007 study found that insufficient sleep is a significant risk factor
for acne.65 A 2011 study, following 1,236 acne patients, confirmed this
result.66 The exact mechanism is unknown, but looking at the welldocumented negative effects of sleep deprivation, we can make some
guesses. Lack of sleep is associated with:67
an impaired immune system
obesity
increased diabetes risk
depression
increased levels of stress hormones
And all of these things are implicated in acne as well:
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An impaired immune system means you cant fight off P. acnes

bacteria obesity makes you insulin-resistant and raises your baseline
blood sugar levels, contributing to glycation and oxidative stress
Diabetes means youre already highly insulin-resistant, meaning your

blood sugar spikes very strongly, signaling your skin to produce more
sebum and more pore-clogging keratinocytes
Depression has roots in inflammation, which well discuss in a moment
Stress hormones, as we will see next, can also worsen acne
Stress
Stress causes acne youve probably heard this before, or you know it to be
true from personal experience. Stress causes complex hormonal changes in
your body, involving the adrenal glands, androgens, and cortisol, which
together mimic the acne-producing activity of IGF-1. These hormones
stimulate excess sebum production, and can put the body into a serious
chronic state of inflammation.
Heres one way that stress causes acne: stress releases cortisol, a hormone
designed to block insulin from shuttling glucose into the muscles, so that you
can burn the glucose for energy immediately instead of storing it (fueling the
fight-or-flight response). In effect, cortisol makes your cells insulinresistant.68 However, when cortisol is always elevated like when youre
chronically stressed out you get constant insulin-resistance. Your pancreas
struggles to pump out enough insulin, but your blood sugar stays high
because your cells dont answer the door when insulin knocks. So you get
chronically elevated insulin on top of high blood sugar, a dangerous
combination that sets the stage for clogged pores, inflammation, glycation,
oxidative damage, and everything we talked about in Chapter 2.
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Adding insult to injury, stress dampens your immune system, blocking the
production of T-cells. That means your body gets deprived of its immune-cell
warriors, and will struggle to fight off foreign invaders, get rid of damaged
cells, and defend against P. acnes.
In one study done in 1953, acne sufferers got more acne and worse
inflammation days after an interview in which anger was intentionally
provoked.69 School examinations and stressful, high-visibility jobs have also
been shown to worsen acne.70 However, doctors still prescribe dangerous
acne medicines first, when instead teaching stress-coping methods to their
patients might be a safer and more effective option. (Unfortunately, reducing
stress is more complicated than simply taking a pill, and far less profitable.
So youre going to have to be your own stress doctor here, unless you feel
like seeing someone about it. I went to a psychotherapist a few years ago
for an eating disorder, and initially I was very hesitant to do it, as I didnt
want to be seen as crazy or messed up, but then I realized that everyone
gets in a weird state of mind sometimes. Everyone could use a little help
from time to time, and seeing a psychotherapist does not mean youre crazy.
Even though society would seem to say otherwise, its not any weirder than
going to see a dermatologist.)
Now, in the grand scheme of things, stress itself is not a bad thing in fact,
the bodys stress response is extremely adaptive to dangerous encounters. A
lion pounces on you, and your body launches into a fight or flight response;
you see a loved one in grave danger, and you run to the rescue and lift a car
off of her. The stress response is fantastically adaptive because it magnifies
your senses, reflexes, physical strength, and speed temporarily, and then
calms down to a relaxed state when the terrifying stimulus ends.
However, for many of us in this modern society, stress is our constant
companion. It goes with us everywhere; were always worrying about how
late were going to be for work, what grade were going to get on that
history test, or how badly the stock markets going to crash down on us and
vaporize all our hard-earned savings. Its this chronic stress that leads to
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systemic inflammation and acne. Your body keeps pumping out stress
hormones, which keep driving inflammation, and your body never truly
relaxes.
Only when your body is in a relaxed state can it devote energy to repairing
itself expelling toxins, regrowing cells, healing wounds, fighting off foreign
invaders. And healing acne.
For some acne sufferers, stress is the single most important cause of their
acne, and reducing stress virtually eliminates their acne altogether. But for
most people, stress is just another factor in the complex problem of acne.
But its an important one. Stress deserves your attention, as do diet, sun,
and everything else mentioned in this book.
You could fill a sizable library just with books on how to reduce stress,
cultivate inner peace, relax, and live in the moment. The most powerful book
I ever read on the topic is called The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. If you
havent read it, I strongly encourage you to try it. I know it looks like newage fluff, but its not. Its an incredibly powerful, insightful book about how
to stop your mind from mulling over things you cant control in other
words, its a chill pill for your brain. There are genuine biological reasons
behind why this works to reduce stress. It did wonders for me, and Im
willing to bet it can do the same for you.
Its worth mentioning that by reducing stress in this way, you can not only
transform your skin, but you can also transform your entire life. For me,
reading The Power of Now started me on a journey from a confused, angry,
perpetually stressed adolescent to a patient, compassionate, and relaxed
adult. I have a much easier time letting things go now, and I experience
more of that quiet inner peace on a day-to-day basis than I did in my first
20 years of life. The benefits have extended far beyond healing my acne,
and for that I am eternally grateful.
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Exercise
Whats another great way to reduce stress? Exercise! Everyone knows this,
but most people go about it the wrong way. The common wisdom is that
jogging for an hour on the treadmill relieves stress. In fact, the opposite is
true. When you subject your body to low-grade exercise (jogging, running)
for an extended period of time, you start to kick in the very same stress
response that we just talked about. Long-distance runners age more quickly
than sprinters, have higher cortisol levels, and less healthy muscle mass.
Thats because sprinting exploits the evolutionary reasons for our stress
response you sprint away from the lion and live to see another day, and
after your body relaxes again, it builds muscle, lung power, and vascular
strength so you can get away even faster next time. If you are a distance
runner, try switching up your exercise routine a few times per week by
substituting in some sprints. Each session typically takes only 10-20
minutes, so you can forget the hours of painful endurance training. For more
information on high-intensity interval training (HIIT), go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training
High-intensity interval training (e.g. sprinting) also dramatically improves
insulin function,71 meaning your body responds to blood sugar fluctuations
better, creating less of the hormones that cause acne. It also burns more fat
than endurance training, and takes less time and effort.72,73
Theres another reason to do HIIT instead of endurance training: a 2011
study tested twelve elite lifelong endurance athletes with no apparent health
problems, and were shocked to find heart scarring (myocardial fibrosis) in
half of them. Similarly-aged men who hadnt done endurance training their
entire lives, as well as young athletes, had no heart scarring.74
So what are some good exercise options for reducing stress? Sprinting,
weight lifting, and sprint rowing, along with their relaxing counterparts, yoga
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and rock climbing. Walking and hiking are also fantastic options, as they
dont activate the stress response like jogging does, but still give you the
stress-reducing benefits of intense exercise.
Other benefits of exercise include increased blood circulation and elimination
of toxins both of which powerfully support the healing of acne and promote
clear skin.
Quit Using Skin & Hair Care Products

This might sound a bit radical, given todays obsession with personal care
products and anal-retentive levels of cleanliness, but stick with me here. If
you regularly use shampoo, lotion, soap, facial cream, scrubs, deodorants,
and makeup, consider weaning yourself off them, or looking very carefully
for some alternatives. Personally, after years of experimentation and reading
about others experiences, I have found that shampoo, soap, lotion, and
deodorant are all unnecessary. Shampoo and soap strip your hair and skin of
natural oils, so they become dry and brittle; to combat this, you use
conditioners and lotion. Washing your armpits with soap every day upsets
the delicate ecosystem of beneficial bacteria, leading to overgrowth of foulsmelling bacteria hence creating the need for deodorant. This works in the
same way that using antibiotics leads to bacterial overgrowth in the gut,
upsetting the delicate gut flora and leading to a host of problems.
When I stopped using shampoo, soap, lotion, and deodorant, I found that
with basically zero effort, my hair stayed soft and full, my skin soft and
moist, and my armpits completely innocent or even smelling good,
according to the ladies I can only suspect that quitting deodorant gives
your natural pheromones a chance to express themselves. And no, Im not
talking about B.O. Thats a completely separate phenomenon.
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Once you start using one of these personal-cleaning products, it creates the
need for others, until you find yourself putting twelve different lotions and
creams and things on your body every single day. You create a whole
ecosystem of needs and interdependencies that feeds itself. If you forget to
use a product just once, it upsets the whole balance and leaves you with oily
skin, terrible B.O., and no end of other issues. However, if you let your body
do its thing naturally, you will see an amazing amount of resilience and
adaptability develop. Dont take a shower for a few days? No problem. Your
body adapts.
(Im going to tell you my dirty little secret. People are shocked when I tell
them this, because they never would have guessed. I take only two to three
showers a month, and I never use soap or shampoo. The interaction goes
something like this: I take two to three showers per month. What? No
way! But you dont smell at all! And your hair looks great. Whats your
secret? How do you do it?! And theyre amazed to find out that there is no
secret, other than the fact that I use ZERO personal care products, except
for lip balm, to which I am hopelessly addicted.)
Your body might be different, or your desires different for example, you
might have long hair, which goes either limp or frizzy without proper
conditioner but I encourage you to experiment with phasing out these
products. You probably dont want to go cold-turkey, because youll be nasty
and gross for at least a week, so its a better idea to gradually reduce your
use of these products and avoid the negative withdrawal effects. For
example, start out by using shampoo and conditioner only every other day,
instead of every day, and after a week or two, go to every third day, etc.
Eventually, your bodys natural mechanisms kick in and normalize, and take
perfect care of your hair and skin naturally.
There are also real health reasons to be careful personal care products:
recent studies have suggested a link between deodorants or antiperspirants
and cancer.75 There is considerable debate around this, but the fact that
aluminum salts are the main active ingredient in antiperspirants, and that
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aluminum is known to cause DNA mutation and epigenetic damage, is

extremely worrying. An increasing number of breast cancers are being found
in the region of the breast nearest the armpit, paralleling the rise in
antiperspirant use.76 In addition, parabens are well-known endocrine
disruptors, meaning they disrupt your bodys critical hormone signaling
systems, and cause cancer as well. Parabens are found in sunscreens and all
kinds of personal care products. Avoid them at all costs.
If you absolutely need to keep using certain personal care products, or
theyre just too much of a leap to give up, then search out natural, organic
products free of harmful chemicals. There are lots out there look for
products with no synthetic detergents, no parabens, no artificial
preservatives, no artificial colors, no artificial fragrances, no petroleum byproducts, tar derivatives, or genetically modified ingredients, and you should
be in the clear. Look for products that focus on organic plant oils, beeswax,
and herbs for fragrance, and youll be treating your skin to natural health
and beauty. And always, always, always look for the label noncomedogenic that means it wont clog your pores.
Clean Up Your Home and Office

The last and final key: to maximize your chances of radiant health and
beautiful skin, live in a clean, pure environment. That means:
Pure water
Clean air
No toxic chemicals or cleaning products
Cleaning up your living environment for optimal health is not as hard as it

sounds, and can actually be quite fun. You might want to start filtering your
water, for example with a tap filter, Brita-type pitcher filter, or a whole-
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house filter; after you do so, youll notice that your water tastes a whole lot
better without all the chlorine, chloramines, and other chemicals added to
most municipal water supplies. In addition, you might try installing a shower
filter; I did this myself, and instantly noticed that my skin felt softer and less
irritated after taking showers.
Furthermore, you might try getting an air filter for the main rooms in your
house. The range of toxic chemicals, carcinogenic fibers, allergens, and other
pollutants floating around in the average household is really quite
staggering. If you dont live on a crowded, noisy street, try opening doors
and windows on all sides of your house or apartment to get a good crossbreeze, which will totally clear out stale air and bring in fresh air in a matter
of hours. If you do live on a noisy street, or other reasons prevent you from
keeping your doors and windows open (the dead of winter, for example), try
installing a HEPA-type air filter not those ionic ozone-generators and
start enjoying clearer sinuses, increased energy, and improved disease
resistance during cold and flu season.
Smoking
The idea that smoking worsens acne is not new, but it bears repeating here.
Smoking increases sebum production, and weve already seen how that
causes acne and inflammation. Smoking also increases sebum lipid
peroxidation, the formation of the extremely dangerous cell- and DNAdamaging zombie fats we learned about in Chapter 5. Finally, smoking
significantly lowers skin levels of vitamin E, one of your skins most powerful
natural defense mechanisms, leaving your skin open to infection by P. acnes
and damage by free radicals.77
If you do smoke, and you have tried to quit in the past but failed, read Allen
Carrs Easy Way to Stop Smoking.78
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12
Final Words
All these things will help energize you for the seemingly Herculean task
ahead of you: curing your acne, once and for all. Step by step, knock off the
big offenders; start with the dairy, the sugar, the vegetable oils and the
gluten. Then go down the list, hitting all the important keys that Ive
outlined, knowing that youll not only be working toward clear and acne-free
skin, but toward the radiant health that is one of the most valuable things
you will ever have.
Once you have achieved that beautiful clear skin, you might feel like
experimenting again with some of the foods youve removed from your diet;
by all means, do so! Youll gain a deeper intuition about which foods set off
your acne the most, because we are all unique, and all respond differently to
the the same things. After some experimentation, though, you might find
that by sticking mostly to the guidelines presented here, you feel the best
you ever have, and you dont feel like going back again. You have my
blessing!
THE END
(Or the beginning?)
P.S. If you have any questions, comments, or need clarification on

something, please shoot me an email at this address:
info@masteryouracne.com
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Page 95
Remember, Im here to help. I know how much acne sucks, and I want to do
everything I can to help you get rid of yours as fast as humanly possible so
your true inner beauty shines through.
Sincerely,
Devin Mooers
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Appendix
Glycemic Index and Insulin Index79
Food
Food Type
Glycemic
Index
Insulin
Index
All-Bran
Breakfast Cereal
40 7
32 4
Porridge
Breakfast Cereal
60 12
40 4
Muesli
Breakfast Cereal
43 7
46 5
Special K
Breakfast Cereal
70 9
66 5
Honeysmacks
Breakfast Cereal
60 7
67 6
Sustain
Breakfast Cereal
66 6
71 6
Cornflakes
Breakfast Cereal
76 11
75 8
Average:
Breakfast Cereal
59 3
57 3
White bread
(baseline)
Carbohydrate-rich
100 0
100 0
White pasta
Carbohydrate-rich
46 10
40 5
Brown pasta
Carbohydrate-rich
68 10
40 5
Grain bread
Carbohydrate-rich
60 12
56 6
Brown rice
Carbohydrate-rich
104 18
62 11
French fries
Carbohydrate-rich
71 16
74 12
White rice
Carbohydrate-rich
110 15
79 12
Whole-meal
bread
Carbohydrate-rich
97 17
96 12
Potatoes
Carbohydrate-rich
141 35
121 11
Average:
Carbohydrate-rich
88 6
74 8
Eggs
Protein-rich
42 16
31 6
Cheese
Protein-rich
55 18
45 13
Beef
Protein-rich
21 8
51 16
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Lentils
Protein-rich
62 22
58 12
Fish
Protein-rich
28 13
59 18
Baked beans
Protein-rich
114 18
120 19
Average:
Protein-rich
54 7
61 7
Apples
Fruit
50 6
59 4
Oranges
Fruit
39 7
60 3
Bananas
Fruit
79 10
81 5
Grapes
Fruit
74 9
82 6
Average:
Fruit
61 5
71 3
Peanuts
Snack/confectionery
12 4
20 5
Popcorn
Snack/confectionery
62 16
54 9
Potato chips
Snack/confectionery
52 9
61 14
Ice cream
Snack/confectionery
70 19
89 13
Yoghurt
Snack/confectionery
62 15
115 13
Mars Bars
Snack/confectionery
79 13
122 15
Jellybeans
Snack/confectionery
118 18
160 16
Average:
Snack/confectionery 65 6
89 7
Doughnuts
Bakery product
63 12
74 9
Croissants
Bakery product
74 9
79 14
Cake
Bakery product
56 14
82 12
Crackers
Bakery product
118 24
87 12
Cookies
Bakery product
74 11
92 15
Average:
Bakery product
77 7
83 5
Bein, Barbara. Nutrition education in US medical schools precarious, say

researchers. American Academy of Family Physicians. http://www.aafp.org/
online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/resident-student-focus/
20101020nutritioneduc.html
2
Logan, Dr. Alan C. Nutritional Medicine. http://www.drlogan.com/

nutritiionalmedicine.asp
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebaceous_gland
Bowe WP, Logan AC. Clinical implications of lipid peroxidation in acne vulgaris:
old wine in new bottles. Lipids Health Dis. 2010 Dec 9;9:141.
5
The Association of Acne Vulgaris With Diet Veith WB, Silverberg NBCutis.
2011;88:84-91. http://www.cutis.com/PDF/088020084.pdf
6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/
These words are from prolific user alternativista on the excellent forums at
Acne.org. She has posted over 7,000 times at the time of this writing, and has
some really insightful things to say about acne. http://www.acne.org/
messageboard/index.php/user/54738-alternativista/
9
Smith R, Mann N, Mkelinen H, Roper J, Braue A, Varigos G. A pilot study to

determine the short-term effects of a low glycemic load diet on hormonal markers
of acne: a nonrandomized, parallel, controlled feeding trial. Mol Nutr Food Res.
2008 Jun;52(6):718-26.
10
Smith R, Mann N, Mkelinen H, Roper J, Braue A, Varigos G. A pilot study to

determine the short-term effects of a low glycemic load diet on hormonal markers
of acne: a nonrandomized, parallel, controlled feeding trial. Mol Nutr Food Res.
2008 Jun;52(6):718-26.
11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index
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12
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
13
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
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Ostman EM, Liljeberg Elmsthl HG, Bjrck IM. Inconsistency between

glycemic and insulinemic responses to regular and fermented milk products. Am
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
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vulgaris: a disease of Western civilization. Arch Dermatol. 2002 Dec;138(12):
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Ostman EM, Liljeberg Elmsthl HG, Bjrck IM. Inconsistency between

glycemic and insulinemic responses to regular and fermented milk products. Am
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21
Melnik BC. Role of FGFR2-signaling in the pathogenesis of acne.

Dermatoendocrinol. 2009 May;1(3):141-56.
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Hoyt G, Hickey MS, Cordain L. Dissociation of the glycaemic and insulinaemic

responses to whole and skimmed milk. Br J Nutr. 2005 Feb;93(2):175-7.
23
www.realmilk.com for raw dairy information, www.realmilk.com/where for

locating raw milk
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24
Woodford, Keith. Devil in the Milk. Chelsea Green: Vermont, 2009. This is an
excellent book on the little-known distinction between A1 and A2 milk. To
illustrate how important the difference is, New Zealand is currently in the process
of converting all their dairy herds to A2-producing cows, while they have been
heretofore dominated by A1 cows.
25
This is done for aesthetic reasons, but I happen to think that cream-top milk
and yogurt are the most delicious kinds out there. They seem more real to me,
more genuine, than homogenized versions.
26
Lenoir M, Serre F, Cantin L, Ahmed SH. Intense sweetness surpasses cocaine

reward.PLoS One. 2007 Aug 1;2(8):e698.
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Shanahan MD, Catherine (2011). Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need
Traditional Food (Kindle Locations 2858-2859). Big Box Books. Kindle Edition.
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Shanahan MD, Catherine (2011). Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need
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Fife ND, Bruce. Saturated Fat May Save Your Life. Healthwise Publications,
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studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease.
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For more on this subject, dubbed the lipid hypothesis, as well as debunking
myths about cholesterol and saturated fat, look into Gary Taubes excellent book,
Good Calories, Bad Calories.
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Kuipers RS, de Graaf DJ, Luxwolda MF, Muskiet MH, Dijck-Brouwer DA,
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http://thescreamonline.com/essays/essays5-1/vegoil.html
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http://www.thresholdthree.com/as/deficiency.html
37
The China Study is not good science. These articles point out serious flaws:
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-8e.shtml
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cancer/the-china-study-vs-the-china-study/
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html
http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/07/07/the-china-study-fact-or-fallac/
http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/07/31/one-year-later-the-china-study-revisited-andre-bashed/
38
http://www.allaboutfasting.com/soaking-grains.html
http://nourishedkitchen.com/soaking-grains-nuts-legumes/
39
http://sproutpeople.org/
40
http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/
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http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/
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Safarinejad MR, Hosseini SY, Dadkhah F, Asgari MA. Relationship of omega-3

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Master Your Acne

THE SELF-STUDY GUIDE FOR ACNE SUCCESS

Master Your Acne!

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How To Use This Document

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Master Your Acne!

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Master Your Acne!

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Master Your Acne!

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Master Your Acne!

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How Come My Dermatologist Didnt Tell Me All

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The Shotgun Approach

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Overcome the Victim Mentality

Alright, it's time to snap out of your victim mentality.

Find Your Own Truth

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Symptoms vs. Causes

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When you get acne, it's a sign that there's something

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as a pimple or a closed comedo) is a follicle that is

So already, were finding out

Normal hair follicle

Thats all fine and dandy,

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and blackheads, but with no redness, no swelling, and no lumps. If only it

(To clarify, sebum is an oily, waxy substance secreted by your sebaceous

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1. Your skin produces excess sebum.

The pathology consists of blockage and

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One woman. One way. One desire: clear skin. But

And her fate, of course, is for you to decide.

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By stimulating your body to produce extra IGF-1, you're creating a sickly

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