Gluten free – probably the biggest diet trend that has hit this side of the 21st century.
But what’s the deal? Is it legit? Is gluten that bad?
And most importantly: if you get breakouts, do you absolutely have to get rid of gluten to get rid of acne?
First of all, if you don’t know what gluten is, let’s get back to basics. It’s a sticky protein that is found in wheat, rye, barley, kamut, and spelt. Oats don’t naturally contain it but are almost always contaminated with it.
Therefore, it’s also in everything that is made from those grains: bread, cereal, pasta, muffins, oatmeal, cake, cookies, doughnuts, and pastries. It’s also hidden in lots of processed foods you might not suspect.
People who are into health have some very strong opinions about gluten. In some diet camps (particularly those who lean paleo), gluten – and in fact, all grains – are considered the work of the devil, sent to earth to ruin your entire digestive system, and subsequently your life. They consider gluten to be very bad for everyone.
Others say that significantly fewer people are actually truly sensitive to gluten. Perhaps 20% of the population.
Maybe You Gotta Avoid It, Maybe You Don’t
I have no way to know the true percentage of people who shouldn’t eat any gluten. But I do know that it can be a real issue for many people.
Some people have celiac disease, meaning that their body literally attacks their own body when they eat gluten.
For others, it’s not AS serious, but the gluten will cause an inflammation in the gut which can then lead to inflammation in your skin. You might notice that you experience obvious digestive problems in your day to day life (bloating, constipation, lethargy, brain fog, heartburn, etc), or you might have no symptoms. Truthfully, it’s pretty hard to tie any digestive upset you experience to gluten since it’s generally eaten all the time by most people.
But anyway, many people say when they quit gluten, it’s like their whole world became brighter. They felt great, like a fog had finally lifted.
And acne? Gluten does seem to have something of a correlation with acne. After dairy, it seems to be the most common food that can cause breakouts for people.
So the answer to whether you have to cut out gluten to clear your acne?
Maaaybe. (HaHA! The most annoying answer possible! Sorry!)
But yeah. I mean, going gluten free is a lot easier than it used to be since it seems like ‘everyone’s doing it’ these days, but it’s still not easy. In fact, it can often be a royal pain the ass. So it’s probably not something you want to do if you don’t have to.
However, if you’ve got a stubborn acne problem that isn’t responding to other natural treatments, and you’ve never tried going gluten free – it may be worth trying it for a while just to see what happens with your skin and how you feel. It’s the only true way you’re gonna know how gluten affects you. Consider giving it a shot for at least two months (just google “starting a gluten free diet” and there are plenty of resources that will teach you the ins and outs of how to actually do this).
If you notice that you get symptoms after eating gluten – bloating, foggy head, lethargy, other digestive symptoms… then it’s more likely you are sensitive to it than if you didn’t get these symptoms. But sometimes gluten intolerance is silent and you really don’t know it’s affecting you until you stop eating it.
That being said – if you’ve tried going gluten free and it’s not making a lick of difference to your acne, then perhaps avoiding it at all costs really isn’t worth it!
My Personal Journey And Feelings on Gluten
When I first was trying to get rid of my acne, I went completely gluten free and stayed strictly gluten free for maybe a year or so. I slowly started eating more and more of it.
It is hard for me to say exactly how much of a role my lack of gluten played in clearing my skin. And I’m still not exactly certain whether I am truly sensitive to it or not. I never really found that for me quitting gluten made my whole world come out of a fog. And I don’t really notice any particular symptoms after I eat it.
I find that at least in my current state of being, gluten in moderate amounts doesn’t seem to be a detriment to my health or skin.
However, I admit I still have trouble shaking that wonder about whether the paleo folks are right, and it really is the work of the devil!
Therefore, I do try to reduce the overall amount of gluten that I eat. I try not to plan meals into my every day life that are outright glutenous. I don’t really eat much pasta. I try not to have sandwiches for lunch regularly, or at least not several days in a row. I will choose gluten free alternatives if they are there.
If I do consciously choose to eat gluten at home, I try not to eat a lot of it all at once. And if I want to use some flour in cooking, I use whole grain spelt (an ancient form of wheat that is supposedly easier to digest). And I try to definitely avoid white bread, or “white gluten” as much as possible. But I do still eat it if it’s a special occasion.
That being said, due to the sheer amount of gluten in this world, plenty of it still sneaks into my diet even with my attempts to kinda sorta avoid it.
It’s the Processed Foods I Don’t Like
At this point, a lot of my aversion to gluten has to do with the fact that I believe that, in many cases, heavily processed foods are worse than a particular food group like grains.
The fact is, most of the stuff that contains gluten is very processed. And even the gluten free alternatives are super processed. Just because you’re gluten free doesn’t mean you are automatically going to be healthy.
Bread (yes, even brown bread) from the store is processed and with suspect ingredients. Cereals and cakes and pastries and doughnuts and muffins are the same, and most are made from white flour and sugar. Refined grains and sugar will cause acne by creating blood sugar swings, which can lead to higher androgenic activity in the body. This can lead to acne.
I just don’t feel that good about eating that stuff. So I try to avoid it, even if that doesn’t always work.
However, I recently found that there’s a lady at the farmer’s market in town who sells homemade real sourdough bread. Real sourdough bread is the old way of making bread, where the dough is risen by aid of natural bacteria which break down the grain and gluten and make it much easier for you to digest. Many people who have trouble with regular gluten can eat sourdough without dramas.
I now buy this every week and eat it, and feel very good about it.
I also feel fine about eating gluten while I’m at a restaurant, or eating with friends. For me, it’s just easier to just let life flow like that.
So, yeah! That’s my story with that! You might not be the same. You might find that you really cannot eat gluten no matter what without suffering the consequences.
But you never know – it might not be forever.
I do believe that as we go through our journeys toward health, our bodies get stronger, and the bacteria in our guts get heartier, which means that maybe one day you can eat gluten without a problem. This may be the reason that I can eat a lot of the things now that may have caused me acne in the past.
Have you tried going gluten free? Has it made any real difference in your skin?
Same here, when I first went on the natural path of skin care I also went gluten free and dairy free and I found that it didn’t make that much of a difference. After 4 months of gluten free, I started eating it again and didn’t have any problems connected to it. Dairy is another story, it helped a lot.
Yeah, I don’t want to make anyone feel like they HAVE to cut it out if it’s not making a difference for them. Nice for you that it’s not a big deal 🙂
Not sure about barley, kamut and spelt, but oats do not inherently contain gluten =) The only gluten in oats would be because of cross-contamination if they were processed in a factory that processed wheat or rye (or maybe those other ones if they do have gluten). Just FYI!
Hi Lyz,
I know, but I thought it was that pretty much all oats are contaminated with gluten? unless they are specifically gluten free oats which aren’t as easy to find. Anyway I know that one’s a gray area considering.. it’s like.. well is it even enough contamination to matter?
Anyway, I updated the article to make that more clear.
Gotcha. That may be correct – I’m not gluten-free myself, though, so I haven’t had to hunt for it. I only bring it up because my mother-in-law is a nutritionist/dietician and has met a lot of people who are misunderstood. People with celiacs disease may not be able to do regular oats, but for the purpose of mild gluten sensitivities (autism, etc), oats generally aren’t an issue.
That’s helpful, thanks 🙂
I’m from the Paleo camp, and I do think all grains are evil, particularly wheat! 🙂 Thought I’d share my two cents.
I have gluten more or less once a month – that’s when my husband and I have our monthly Italian pizza. In the past it used to make me seriously hangover the next day. But I mean seriously hangover – headache, upset stomach, super tired, sleepy, dry skin. I also used to gain quite a bit of weight, which used to come down again within a few days (water retention I guess?).
But lately I’ve been tolerating it much better and I can pretty much eat it without any consequences the next day (as long as I don’t eat it more than once a month). I think it’s because Paleo eating has healed my gut. Yay!
Yay! That’s awesome, good to hear things are healing for you! 🙂 You are obviously one of those people who gluten does a number on
Hey Tracy, I know this is kind of unrelated to this article, but I’ve been dealing with acne for so long. Not anything severe but enough to make me think that I must be unhealthy (something must be out-of-whack!). I’ve tried so many different things. Just about every face wash you could think of, and right now I’m just using Manuka honey and Jojoba oil which hasn’t made things worse, but also hasn’t cleared things up either. I know to heal acne you have to be patient and work hard at holistic healing, but I guess my question is: How do you stay patient and not get distraught. It’s so depressing knowing I used to have nice skin and nothing now is working.
Sorry for the long explanation. I love reading your articles btw.
Hi Van, aw I’m sorry, I know it’s so hard not to get discouraged. The best thing to do is honestly stay busy with things that you love, hobbies, activities, friends etc, resist staring at it in the mirror for hours, and focus on it the least amount as possible. Hard to do, but it’s really the only way to stay patient and pass the time without drowning in a pool of misery :/ You’ll get there, sending love xo
Van,
I cut way back on Gluten, sugar, and PUFAs. You must be disciplined, but it worked for me.(I am 43 years old, and have been doing this for about 2 years)
Good Luck,
Update
I’ve been doing caveman (kind of) only using a little water in the shower on my face. I stopped using soap on my arms and legs too because I’m realizing now that it has been irritating my skin. Now my skin is SO MUCH BETTER!! I’ve been eating well ( lots if fermented foods) taking fermented cod liver oil, other vitamins, a shot of apple cider vinegar every morning and night, and drinking kombucha tea. It’s kind of a lot of work at first, but now that I’m feeling better and more healthy I can’t even go near fast food of coke or any of that nasty stuff. I’m just really grateful about these results; I feel like my eyes have been opened to all the poison my body has been just soaking up.
Woohoo that’s awesome! 🙂 Very happy for you!
Hi Tracy,
I’ve gone almost totally gluten and dairy free (I’m also using Manuka honey, Jojoba oil, and Estroblock) since I found your website a couple months ago… but I haven’t noticed much difference in my complexion or how I feel. Do you think if I were to get a food allergy panel done on myself, it would show whether food is what’s behind my acne?
Thanks so much for all that you do to spread the word about naturally healing your skin… after 17 years with moderate acne, I finally feel like I’m close to figuring out what’s causing it!
Hi Kate,
It might help, hard to say. Sometimes it’s really not that much to do with specific foods, it’s more to do with stress, hormones, etc. But then again, it could be to do with food, in which case yes a food sensitivity test might be a good idea since people can be sensitive to all sorts of things, not just dairy or gluten. Those are just the most common. Soy is up there too.
I’ve found that it isn’t the gluten that bothers me, but other things. If we are just talking bread…baked with clean ingredients (or as clean as possible), I will break out from whole grain bread but not Italian. The more unrefined, unprocessed material in the bread, the worse I will break out. I can eat high gluten Italian rolls with minimal crazy ingredients and not break out. I can’t eat Ezekiel bread without breaking out. So…take from that what you will.
If we’re talking about cereal, doughnuts, etc…There are other ingredients in there that could be giving you acne like corn syrup (which many supermarket BREADS have), preservatives, extra vitamins they add, whey protein, etc. You really have to examine what you are eating VERY closely to see what is truly breaking you out.
To be clear, it isn’t just Ezekiel that breaks me out. Any whole grain, healthy, grainy bread. The grainier the bread, the more severe the breakout…
Crazy. Very interesting that it’s the whole bread that breaks you out! It really is so individual. Unfortunately. I wish it was more straight forward.
My gut/digestion is not in good shape and I think it is just too hard for my system to process certain unrefined grains.
Yep, makes sense
Hi everyone! Has anybody considered doing raw food diet or have done it to improve the condition of their skin? I have had a very oily skin for years and as a result- congestion, blackheads, occasional breakouts, and I have tried everything trying to fix the problem externally , – organic skin care,chemical peels, regular monthly visits to the Beaty salon for extractions, also during last year I realized I needed to do smith from inside, I have been drinking green drinks ( kale spinach all sorts of greens mixed in a blender with water and some fruit ), Joni juice…. Nothing helped!!! So, I am just soo over it and I want my skin stop producing this rediculous amounts of oil , that I am going on a raw food diet! I am in my 4th day , and it is not so bad!very interested how it will work out!!! So if anybody did raw food diet, please let us know here! Thank you Tracy for your informative blog!
I don’t know if you have this issue under control, but drinking lots of peppermint tea reduced my oil levels. Hope this may help.
Hi Tracy,
I am glad that you are exploring every way to get rid of acne…I like your articles and apply them too. but I genuinely request you to write an article guiding how to get rid of ” MILIA” on face, particularly on cheeks. these are caused by blisters and are secondary type of it. I am suffered from it since last two years. they go completely for some time and reappear . and some stubborn more milium don’t even go. I need your help. hope you will help. thanks.:-)
Hi Natty,
I have already written an article on milia, check it out: https://thelovevitamin.com/5161/non-conventional-advice-on-how-to-treat-and-prevent-milia
thanks a lot Tracy…!:-)
Hi Tracy,
I went to an herbalist and she tested me for gluten sensitivity using kiniesology. I was sensitive to it. So I just went to gluten free two months ago and so far I have not seen any effects on my skin. In fact, if anything my skin has gotten worse! It may have to do with the fact that I started school and have stress from work, but it is still difficult to say. I actually had a slip up today and ate a wheat tortilla! I freaked out! Do you think that this will mean I have to start over with the whole gluten free thing or it won’t make that much of a difference? Before started I had pretty bad constipation ( 1-2x week) and it has not improved that much with the gluten free, more fiber, water, and omega 3s (3x wk). Also, I went dairy free for a couple months in the summer and noticed no difference. It was very hard to do this after a while bc it was so inconvenient when going out. After a while I just started eating dairy here and there and now I eat it a couple times a week (regular pastuerized) bc it makes me happy. Please offer any advice you can. I also want to check out my hormones with a saliva test but wait another month or so.
Hi Saira, if after two months it really hasn’t made any difference to your skin, there’s probably no point in continuing to avoid it. May as well go ahead and have it in moderation. Don’t worry about the wheat tortilla, it’s no big deal.
OK that’s what I was thinking, thanks!
Hi tracy I would really appreciate if you could answer my question and offer any advice. It would mean a lot. Thank you, SAira.
Will I have gluten sensitivity it does not do anything to my skin. It does give me terrible sinus issues though so I general keep it to a minimum. What has worked for me is leaving my skin be. Doing nothing to the skin has helped a lot.
Hi Tracy,
First of all thanks a lot for sharing so valuable information to all of us acne sufferers. I have read two of your books including Ultimate Secrets to Acne Freedom. I am following the strict sugar free, gluten free and dairy free diet though my blood tests do not indicate any food allergies or sensitivity. My hormonal tests are normal as well. Also, I am eating all the healthy food and balance diet.I haven’t seen any improvements in my acne condition yet but still I am doing it since last 25 days with full faith because I am sick and tired of my acne. I am 30 years old now and had been suffering with them since last 18 years. I just have one problem and if you could help me with that then it’ll be great. I am having a big, painful and ugly nodular cystic sort of acne sitting on my face (near nose on my left cheek since last one month and it has become only bigger. I have tried all sorts of natural remedies which I read here on love vitamin but still I haven’t seen any success. Can you please suggest me something? Thanks
Hi Garima, sorry to hear that you’re struggling with acne 🙁 For the cystic one, perhaps this article could you help you find something to treat it specifically? https://thelovevitamin.com/3389/make-big-pimple-go-away-fast/
Hi Tracy, I’m just wondering if it’s normal to experience a flare up of acne in the first few days of going gluten free? I’m getting desperate after years of awful hormonal acne and have completely cut out gluten and dairy to see if that has any effect. Nothing else has worked. Anyway I know I haven’t given it enough time to see results yet and I want to persist for a month to give my body time to adjust. But in the meantime my skin is WAY worse. I don’t know if this is just a normal detoxification process? Or is it a strange reaction? Thanks for your advice!
Hi Gemma, I wouldn’t say it’s unusual. Sounds like classic time to get detox acne, and cutting out dairy and gluten could definitely trigger that.
Hi,
I´m 35 years old and i´ve acne since 12. So, i did lots of things trying to get ride of it. I made several isotretinoin treatments, took birth control pills, i used all kinds of lotions for acne, etc.
As i´m vegan, i don´t eat dairy products for more than 14 years. When i heard about gluten free diets and how much it can result in acne elimination, i went in a gluten free diet and i also reduced the sugar.
Almost 2 months later i still have acne…Maybe my body is still detoxing the gluten, or this diet is just not working for me…What do you think?
Thank you so much for your advices, Tracy 🙂
Hi Sofia, has your acne changed at all in this time? Gluten just may not be your issue! Everyone is different
Same here, I am 34 years old, acne since 12-13, there are no inflammations now, but the skin just keeps producing oil!!! and as a result-the pores get blackheads. I have tried everything………I probably haven’t stood on my ears yet!!! My recent “try” is moving towards Ayurvedic skin care and weekly home microderm, also taking triphala internally. We will see, we will see……..
I stumbled onto your website regarding something else and then saw this article as well.
I jumped on the gluten free bandwagon about 8 years ago- long before it became trendy. I tried it on the advice of a health-oriented friend, who suggested it might work for my chronic, stubborn acne that had not responded to any drug, lotion, potion…even Accutane.
2 months of going fully gluten free was a miracle worker for me, and I saw a significant improvement toward the end. Staying on the gluten free from that point on completely cleared my skin up within a few months more. It was quite the heady experience after years of major frustration, to say the least.
Here’s the kicker though. After the 2 year and beyond mark of being gluten free, I began to notice subtle differences with my overall health: less respiratory issue (eg colds), less gassy, less fatigue, and better moods.
I can’t stress it enough- if you have chronic acne that doesn’t respond to other therapies, you should definitely commit to trying a fully gluten free, elimination diet for at 2 months to see if there’s an improvement with your skin. You’ll have to do a little research though, as there’s hidden gluten in some processed foods you wouldn’t suspect.
I was a big foodie then, so if I could do it and give up pasta and bread, etc, then anybody can. No excuses…particularly now when there’s gluten-free alternatives everywhere.
Hey Coll, thanks for your comment… it’s true, sometimes gluten really does affect people in a crazy way! It’s worth trying, especially if nothing else is doing the trick
Hello tracy.
I know this post is quite old but i would still like to share my opinion
im currently 21 years old male , i developed acne at like 18 and it really impacted me emotionally i would get kinda cystic/ buried pimples and i would get impatient and pop em, leaving huge scars wich left me even more emotionally down, as the years passed my acne became a lil bit more stable , i would get a pimple or 2 every once in a while, but it still had a lot of impact on me due the fear to having even more scars and even worse skin.
The point where i want to get is, recently i changed my life style, I started going to the gym, i started a paleo diet (sort of) i mainly eat protein and fats and if i do carbs i do so only from vegetables and fruits, and finally i quitted refined sugar.
I dont get acne now, i used to have a bit on my back/shoulders, it dissapeared as well , the problem is im unsure wich of the 3 things i changed in my life style is the source of vanishing my acne.
I’m really afraid if going back to carbs as breads and pastas and getting acne again. But a part of me believes that gluten is the source of it , i would usually feel very bloated after eating gluten food like breads or pasta.
And about dairy i’ve never been a milk drinker, but i do eat cheese and a lot of (of course) non added sugar natural yogur and those don’t make me get acne.