Acne is certainly one of the problems of our century. Unfortunately, one of the characteristics of this condition is that you cannot trace a line of causality that starts from a single cause.
Thus, diagnosing is often a lottery where we either play alone, reading articles online, searching on Google, or following all sorts of "influential people in the field," or alongside various dermatologists or even beauticians.
The winning answer to this lottery is often "hormonal acne," a name that seems extremely vague because, considering the level of information in the hormonal field, everything we know about hormones is vague. We end up in a vicious cycle of hormonal analyses and medications that interfere with our body's functioning, we start to be open to the idea of treating it with contraceptives because, hey, they also contain hormones, right? We make impulsive decisions trying to solve the cause of our acne – hormonal imbalance.
You already know that when we talk about a problem, the solution must be sought for the CAUSE, not the effect. I hear this very often: "I need to fix a hormonal imbalance." Ladies, this is not a cause; it is, in turn, an effect.
Before blaming hormones for any of our problems, we should carefully analyze what is actually the cause of hormonal imbalances. They represent the tip of an iceberg, but something triggered them. Here are the main causes of hormonal imbalances:
1) Unstable glycemic index
2) A gut flora affected by poor-quality nutrition, lack of nutrients, medications, contraceptives
3) Stress and adrenal dysfunction
4) Imbalanced cortisol
5) An inconsistent or unhealthy circadian rhythm
6) Poor hepatic metabolism affected daily by toxic personal care products and the widespread use of plastic
You can treat your hormonal acne by working on the causes of hormonal imbalances. I recommend that the first element you focus on be your gut flora.
I must admit that we have developed a lot here in recent years. Finally, we associate gut flora with probiotics, prebiotics, or antibiotics. But we still haven't managed to understand the importance of less commercial key nutrients, N-Acetyl-Cysteine. In short, NAC.
NAC is extremely important in the gut flora healing process. It has an extremely important function – it is a biofilm disruptor for resistant bacteria in the gut. I know this may sound complicated, so let's explain this process a bit.
Our microbiome is composed of friendly and unfriendly bacteria. Daily, there is a fierce battle between them, and, as in any battle, you learn how to defend yourself. Over time, unfriendly bacteria have gained resistance and can cope with any enemy. They have created a protective biofilm (similar to a shield) against good bacteria like Lactobacillus Brevi, against antibiotics, microbial herbs, or other forms of friendly bacteria. Because of this biofilm, they manage to survive and continue to multiply regardless of whether we are following a medicinal or naturopathic treatment.
There are countless scientific studies demonstrating that NAC is an irreplaceable co-factor when we want to achieve results and healing in conditions such as: SIBO, leaky gut, dysbiosis, gastrointestinal infections, meteorism, treatments for inactivating viruses, bacteria, and eliminating parasites from the gut.
We live for years with untreated infections, dysbiosis, and an imbalanced gut flora that doesn't constantly bother us, only occasionally with bloating, diarrhea, constipation, low or high acidity, depressive states or anxiety, facial or body acne. All these lead primarily to inefficient nutrient assimilation and the inability of the estrobolome to function at its best.
What is the estrobolome?
A collection of bacteria in the gut, implicitly part of the microbiome, which has the function of metabolizing and modulating circulating estrogen in the body. The bacteria in the microbiome and estrobolome affect estrogen levels in the body which, in turn, affects our skin appearance, weight, health, libido, and mood.
After years of your body signaling that it needs help and you haven't responded to its call, you are surprised that the barriers begin to give way. We have learned together in the last year how to recognize the warning signs. What are the first actions we need to take when we see them? From the first signs, you need to pay more attention to what you have on your plate, help your body with a healthy intake of fermented foods, eliminate the toxic products that surround you, pay attention to the quality of the water you drink, how much alcohol you consume, the dishes you eat from when ordering food from Glovo, the dishes in which food is cooked, the level of physical and invisible stress, the time spent in nature, connecting with yourself, eliminating excess pesticides (especially glyphosate, which wreaks havoc on our gastrointestinal system).
Do you know why our skin responds so beautifully and quickly to gluten elimination? Because we automatically eliminate the input of herbicide widely used for wheat. Eliminating gluten from foods such as bread, croissants, pastries, pasta, pretzels and sticks, pizza, and the long list you already know will result in rapid changes in the skin simply because it is no longer bombarded from within.
I opened this topic about gut flora because, immediately after the launch of Biotiful Life nutraceuticals, I received dozens of messages on my Instagram account asking why I hadn't created a probiotic formula.
Why start with the end (i.e., probiotic intake) in treating gut flora, when we can act intelligently and according to the latest research in the field? I am a big supporter of probiotics, of course, but I want us to build and maintain a healthy gut flora naturally, not "repopulate" an area stripped of beneficial bacteria. This is why I recommend that you introduce NAC into your diet and supplementation, to achieve a balance of the gut flora. It's useless to bring good bacteria into the fight if we don't give them the necessary weapons to fight on behalf of a balanced microbiome.
What is NAC?
N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC) is not a synthetic substance created by aliens in a laboratory; it is a substance we consume daily through certain foods. It is derived from the amino acid L-cysteine. This, in turn, is derived from methionine.
So, in which foods do we find NAC? In those rich in the amino acid cysteine:
- organic tofu (i.e., soy)
- garlic
- onion
- red pepper
- unpasteurized dairy products: yogurt, milk, cheese
- poultry
- fish
- sunflower seeds (hydrated, not exposed to thermal aggression)
- dates
- pseudocereals (quinoa, millet)
- certified organic cereals (wild rice, oats)
- eggs
- broccoli
- in Skin Diet nutraceuticals, where the NAC used is extracted from these foods.
Due to the modern diet, extremely poor in nutrients, and the lack of interest in what we eat, many of these foods are missing, are of poor quality, or are wrongly consumed or cooked. Thus, the amount of cysteine is lost in this whole process, along with the amino acid from which it is derived – methionine.
Our body is not capable of producing its own cysteine, therefore it needs to be obtained from a balanced diet.
If foods are cooked properly and combined according to Scientific Nutrition guidelines, exactly as we learned in Nontoxic Cooking Club 1 and 2 Summer Edition.
then the dietary intake would look like this:
- poultry - % cysteine in 100g - 160% RDI
- dairy - % cysteine in 100g - 102% RDI
- pseudocereals - % cysteine in 100g - 42% RDI
- eggs - % cysteine in 100g - 51% RDI
- fish - % cysteine in 100g - 117% RDI
- sunflower - % cysteine in 100g - 157% RDI
RDI stands for RECOMMENDED DAILY INTAKE, which is the minimum nutritional requirement. Let's not forget that we depend heavily on how foods have been transported, stored, cooked – the bioavailability of nutrients is lost in this process. If we do this calculation thinking about NAC, we must not forget that its percentage is not the same as that of cysteine itself.
These regulations are general and incorporate a minimum daily requirement, but when we talk about therapeutic interventions, scientific studies provide real healing results in the presence of a significantly higher supplementation intake. Adjuvant treatments in research with excellent results started from a much higher daily dose – 250-500 mg NAC.
This is also the mission of NAC in Skin Diet nutraceuticals, to work subtly and intelligently with your body to improve a factor that influences multiple skin and general beauty conditions – the gut flora.
In conclusion, if you have a diagnosis of hormonal acne due to hormonal imbalances, I advise you to treat them in turn as effects to which your body will continue to react as long as you do not address the underlying cause.
Work with a healthcare professional you fully trust, a person with an innovative vision, open to listening to you, to discussing together the studies that demonstrate everything I wrote above. Choose the specialists you work with intelligently – a friend's positive experience will not translate into a positive experience for you. Continue to invest in your education – possess the correct information for true healing. I still believe that when we talk about prevention and maintenance, you should be your own best advisor.
It's time to understand that we can no longer wait for someone else to heal us; we are responsible for this aspect.
On your path to health, you must be unstoppable. Form your own opinions but be open to change, carefully choose your sources of information, and don't waste time. Take your health into your own hands.
Love,
Angelina
