Does Dairy Cause Acne?

When we were teenagers we expected acne, it was a coming of age, a sort of rite of passage. Now, as an adult, when I was still struggling with acne, I was like WTF? According to the Academy of American Dermatologists, acne is the most common skin condition in the U.S. and it affects up to 50 million Americans annually. That's a huge market...no wonder those ProActiv doctors are millionaires! For a condition that affects so many people, there are still a lot of unknowns with it. One of the most controversial: Can what you eat or drink cause you to break out?

Dairy has been one of the most commonly discussed culprits in whether your diet can be to blame. But whether your love of cheese is directly causing your outbreak is still up for debate, as there are plenty of myths about what causes zits.

Here's the scoop. Acne is an inflammatory condition. Oil gets trapped inside your pores, clogging them up. This allows bacteria to grow within the follicles, which causes inflammation. That inflammation produces the red bumps on your skin.

Cow's milk can cause inflammation too, and the hormones in milk can react with the testosterone in your body and increase the oily substance (sebum) in your skin that clogs your pores.  Plus, milk proteins like whey and casein may also be to blame, though the exact process behind what’s causing it isn’t yet known.

So what's a girl to do? The jury is still out, but if you suffer from breakouts it's worth cutting out dairy to see how your skin reacts. Just remember, it can take up to a month to see any kind of impact on your skin. There is also some good news. Milk and ice cream have been associated with acne, but yogurt and cheese don’t seem to have the same type of effect. Hallelujah, at least there is a silver lining to all this talk about no dairy!