The Diets & Supplements That Can Mess Up Your Skin

Many health trends are centered around beauty in one way or another, and skin health is a common one. However, sometimes these well-intended efforts can backfire!

Today we’ll be sharing the results of some research into how things can wrong:

Diets that are common culprits

The following are partially-overlapping categories, but we’re going with what was used in the study (which we’ll link at the bottom):

• Keto: amongst many other problems, this commonly leads to keto rash (prurigo pigmentosa), with red, itchy plaques on the neck, trunk, and face; this problem is further compounded because low awareness among clinicians causes frequent misdiagnosis.
  • See also: Ketogenic Diet: Burning Fat Or Burning Out? ← it can work for short term fat loss, but long-term, the risks add up quickly
• Carnivore: eliminates plant nutrients and fiber, which omissions are disastrous for the health (especially the gut, heart, and brain), and in the category of skin health specifically, means skin immunity issues due to loss of gut microbiota support, and also inviting scurvy, thus, poor wound healing—unless you’re eating a lot of raw liver every day, in which case, your vitamin C needs will be met, and it’s only all the other problems you’ll need to worry about.
  • See also: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy? ← the answer is most of us don’t (but also, most of us can benefit from some), but we sure do need plants
• Paleo: can in principle be done healthily, but based on the data, how people most often do paleo usually leans far too heavily on the meat and scantily on the plants, resulting far too much salt and saturated fat, and not nearly enough of many micronutrients, and usually low on fiber.
  • See also: What’s The Real Deal With The Paleo Diet?
• Raw vegan: can in principle be done healthily, but poorly planned versions risk deficiencies in iron, B12, protein, essential fatty acids, and biotin—causing glossitis, dry skin, brittle nails, or hyperpigmentation. Unless you have a specific-to-you medical reason, there’s no reason to skip the (by necessity: cooked) legumes that bring most of these nutrients to most vegans.
  • See also: Whole-Food Plant-Based: Better Than The Mediterranean? ← by some metrics yes, but it’s important to do it right

And, applicable for all four of those, which all share a theme of going against the grain, so to speak: Grains: Bread Of Life, Or Cereal Killer?

Supplements that are common culprits

You can, in fact, have too much of a good thing, and supplements make it very easy to overdo it:

• Selenium: has a very narrow safety range, and excess causes hair loss, nail dystrophy, and more—ironically, since it is usually marketed as improving those things (which in small doses, it does)
• Niacin: leads to skin flushing and, if regularly taken excessively, exfoliative dermatitis (itchy flaky skin) and/or erythroderma (reddened scaly skin); commonly seen with high-dose supplements or energy drinks.
• Zinc: zinc is critical for many things, but an excess of it reduces copper absorption, causing skin and hair pigment loss, ulcers, anemia, and neuropathy.
• Protein: whey protein is pro-inflammatory and worsens acne via IGF-1 and androgen stimulation (and also messes with insulin signalling while it’s at it, but that’s more of a whole-body problem than a skin problem); collagen, meanwhile, is fine in the recommended range of 5–20g/day, but can get in the way of the microbiome at high doses, which can in turn cause inflammatory issues.
• Bodybuilding supplements: a broad category here but for a reason—it’s because they often contain unregulated and/or mislabeled ingredients, including steroids and stimulants, leading to cystic acne, hair loss, and stretch marks.

You can read the paper itself, here: When Diet Trends Go Viral: Cutaneous Manifestations of Social Media-Driven Fad Diets and Supplements

Want to learn more?

Here’s one way to do it right:

The Diet That Slows Skin Aging ← just be sure to hit the recommended levels of those nutrients, not the 10x, 100x, 1000x, etc as can be offered in some supplements!

Take care!