Acne Self-Experimentation: Why It’s Promising
This article reports that there was no acne whatsoever among the Kitava Islanders in Papua New Guinea and the Ache hunter-gatherers in Paraguay. Here is the abstract:
BACKGROUND: In westernized societies, acne vulgaris is a nearly universal skin disease afflicting 79% to 95% of the adolescent population. In men and women older than 25 years, 40% to 54% have some degree of facial acne, and clinical facial acne persists into middle age in 12% of women and 3% of men. Epidemiological evidence suggests that acne incidence rates are considerably lower in nonwesternized societies. Herein we report the prevalence of acne in 2 nonwesternized populations: the Kitavan Islanders of Papua New Guinea and the Aché hunter-gatherers of Paraguay. Additionally, we analyze how elements in nonwesternized environments may influence the development of acne. OBSERVATIONS: Of 1200 Kitavan subjects examined (including 300 aged 15-25 years), no case of acne (grade 1 with multiple comedones or grades 2-4) was observed. Of 115 Aché subjects examined (including 15 aged 15-25 years) over 843 days, no case of active acne (grades 1-4) was observed. CONCLUSIONS: The astonishing difference in acne incidence rates between nonwesternized and fully modernized societies cannot be solely attributed to genetic differences among populations but likely results from differing environmental factors. Identification of these factors may be useful in the treatment of acne in Western populations.
This implies that acne isn’t inevitable. It’s almost surely caused by something environmental — perhaps diet, perhaps something else (such as washing your face with soap). That’s why self-experimentation about acne is promising: By changing your environment in various ways, you may be able to figure out what’s causing your acne.
June 25th, 2009 at 7:04 am
My experiment: No bard carbs + less use of soap = Much improved skin complexion on face (tremendous reduction of old scars from acne).
June 25th, 2009 at 9:49 am
These are two isolated, indigenous populations. How exactly does that imply it’s not genetic?? Do you know of a European that has married into the Ache recently? The paper only timidly brushes aside these factors.
It’s also difficult to imagine that 25 million desperate teenagers are unable to self-experiment their way to clear skin without acknowledging that it may take something more cunning.
June 25th, 2009 at 10:33 am
NE1, when people from these populations moved out and lived like the rest of us, they developed acne. You’re right I should have made that point. I also agree that it is a very good question why the average teenager hasn’t managed to do the necessary self-experimentation.
June 25th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Most illnesses including acne are probably always the result of some combination of genetics and environment. A succinct formulation of this is: our genes didn’t evolve to kill us or to make us sick. In the case of acne, it seems unlikely that our genes would want us to have ugly blemishes on our faces, especially during the years of peak reproductive life. Wouldn’t they be strongly selected against?
June 25th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I found though some self experimentation that French Fries cause my acne. Eat even a few fries and within 3 days I get pimples. No fries, no pimples.
It’s something about the French Fries specifically. I can eat baked potatoes without any problems. I’m guessing there is something in the fried potato that is particularly yummy to the acne bacteria.
I’ve also seen a combination of lots of salt + caffeine sometimes cause me to break out, but its much less likely. I’m thinking this happens due to high blood pressure causing stress, but I’m not sure. Theoretically burgers have more salt than the fries, but I’ve never gotten acne from eating just burgers.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Keith, Given the information about how bad rancid fats are, and how most industrial oils (high in omega 6 polyunsaturated lipids) used to make fried foods at restaurants are rancid, I’d guess that it’s the rancid fat and not the potato starch that caused your acne when you ate french fries. Try a self experiment at home: cut up some potatoes into fries and cook one batch in a pan containing coconut oil (or lard or beef tallow or ghee) and another batch in a different pan using cotton-seed oil or corn oil. Eat one one day and eat the other a week later. Use an ABBA design to really nail down the effect (if there is one). That is, eat the corn oil fries on week 1 and week 4 and the coconut oil fries on week 2 and 3. If you get acne for a few days in weeks 1 and 4 but not 2 and 3 you then have clear evidence for my hypothesis. If you get acne all four weeks or sporadically (e.g., weeks 1 and 2 only) then the evidence would fail to support the hypothesis. Or you may get outbreaks on weeks 2 and 3 only which would disconfirm my hypothesis and suggest that it’s fries cooked in coconut oil (or ghee or whatever you use) that causes it–but would contradict the evidence collected from restaurant fries (which are NOT cooked in coconut oil).
June 27th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Maybe one reason teens don’t self-experiment with acne is because where the parents can afford it, they’ll take their child to the doctor for Accutane or some other prescription in the hope of solving the problem quickly. If the mindset is that acne is genetic and/or inevitable, people aren’t likely to look to self-experimentation.
I never had bad teen acne, but now in my 40s I’ve developed “hormonal acne” (apparently one indication of this is that it is isolated around my jawline). I started taking zinc, which helped some but not completely. One day we were out of milk (which I drink a couple of times a day in my cappuccino) so I skipped it. I skipped milk several days, in fact, and noticed that my skin was clearer. Then I drank milk and within two days the cyst-y, painful acne was back. I’m not completely dairy-free–I love cheese and yogurt too much–but I’ve eliminated the milk and really scaled back on daily cheese consumption and my skin is clearing up, although not entirely.
Maybe one of these days I’ll go hog wild and try to eliminate caffeine.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
[…] Previous posts have implicated Western Civilization and face-washing with soap in the etiology of acne. What else might be involved? A reader writes: My girlfriend suffered from acne for years. She went to a dermatologist, tried every fancy soap and skin cleansing system, but nothing worked. She was also a Diet Coke fanatic. Every morning while she was getting ready for work, like a coffee drinker, she’d have one. It was her daily jolt of caffeine. […]
August 11th, 2009 at 11:19 am
[…] Cure Together has acne treatment statistics: Comparisons of the effectiveness of about a dozen treatments. Only two treatments rate high for effectiveness and both have only a few raters. Neither of the high-rated treatments (Roaccutane and Dr. Hauschka Skin Care) was part of Stone-Age life. Because of the absence of acne in at least a few groups of people living more Stone-Age-like (stoneagesque?) lives, it is likely that something about modern life causes acne. When whatever that is is figured out, it should be possible to eliminate acne cheaply and safely. […]
February 6th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
NE1 said: “It’s also difficult to imagine that 25 million desperate teenagers are unable to self-experiment their way to clear skin without acknowledging that it may take something more cunning.”
If by “25 million” you mean “all teenagers in the US,” how do we know this is true?
July 1st, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Aloha,
I had a huge acne problem in graduate school…I had volcanic pimples and those pimples had pimples too. It was painful, it was embarrassing, I was miserable.
I did so much research. I tried all kinds of skin care products with no success at all. I didn’t want to do accutane because I am a beer drinker and I hear that accutane is hard on the liver. I discovered spironolactone and persuaded my doctor to let me try it. At 100 mg a day, my acne literally disappeared; one day I was generating new pimples and the next day, no new ones, and so on, until all that had been there was healed and no new pimples. Hallelujah! So I was on spironolactone for a couple of years and then moved to Hawaii, where it is difficult to persuade a doctor to prescribe medicine off-label (spironolactone is actually a weak diuretic that treats high blood pressure by helping flush out water, but has the extra benefit of binding extra androgens). I started to panic, and then just sat down and thought about what that means, binding excess androgens. I remembered reading that excess androgens are what cause pattern baldness and prostrate enlargement in men, so I looked for an herbal remedy for those symptoms and presto! Saw palmetto is one, and spearmint is another. A few days off spironolactone, and I was just beginning to get some pimples along my jaw line, and began taking 600 mg of Saw palmetto every day in the morning, and drinking spearmint tea sometime during the day. No more pimples. This went on for about a month and then I realized I had been forgetting to take the saw palmetto. Okay, so just spearmint tea. Still no pimples. Then I realized I had forgotten to drink spearmint tea for a few days and decided, since I didn’t have any pimples, to wait and see. Well, something changed, and not sure if it was the saw palmetto, the spearmint tea, or the combination, but I still don’t get pimples (except a couple of very tiny ones at PMS time) anymore and that was about six months ago. My skin is clearer than it has ever been. And I keep both saw palmetto and spearmint tea handy just in case!!!
July 24th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
I have had acne all my life not bad but consistent and I am now 38. I have never used soap on my face. As a teenager I realized that this made things worse. I also don’t use any creams at all (except for suncream lotion and that makes things much worse so I tend to stay in the shade instead.
I moved from a dry air environment (Christchurch New Zealand) to a very humid environment (Auckland New Zealand) 3 years ago and my acne has been much worse since.
I have not yet found a solution for this.