How Addressing Your Gut Can Help With Your Acne

Are you among the nearly 50 million Americans dealing with those red, embarrassing bumps on your face, back, and neck? I’m talking about acne. If you struggle with some form of acne, you understand how frustrating it can be¹ While acne can negatively impact your self-esteem and appearance, it can also indicate something else is happening inside your body. If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know the gut and immune health are closely interconnected. However, have you ever considered the connection between gut health and acne?

Gut health and acne are closely linked, and I’ll explain how in a moment. Acne is the most frequently diagnosed skin condition. Men and women both get acne, with the most common age group ranging from teens to 30s. In this article, I’m sharing how acne develops, possible causes, and treatment options. You’ll also learn how the gut skin axis plays a major role in how often you may get acne.

What Is Acne?

Before we get into the connection between gut health and acne, it’s important to know what acne is, and how it forms. Acne vulgaris, the medical term for acne, is a skin condition that precedes inflammation. Your skin is constantly shedding and regenerating new cells. As the top layer of your skin sheds, dead skin cells begin to flake off. Sebum is a thick, oily substance your skin produces to help hydrate and protect your skin. Your skin also hosts trillions of bacteria. Acne can develop when dead skin cells, sebum, and bacteria clog your pores.

 There are also different types of acne. The two main types are inflammatory and non-inflammatory. Non-inflammatory acne shows up as your typical blackheads and whiteheads. They usually won’t have the associated swelling you see in inflammatory acne. Inflammatory acne, on the other hand, often has a red and angry appearance. These can look like papules, pustules, nodules, and cysts. These can be painful to the touch, and difficult to treat²

Some people have only one type, but others have several. The good news is that knowing your habits and lifestyle can help determine the cause of your acne and aid in finding the proper treatment options.

What Causes Acne

Functional medicine recognizes that the human body is interconnected. This holistic approach looks at how the body responds to internal and external factors. Understanding these factors can help determine what causes acne.

Acne is an inflammatory response. This means there is inflammation in the body. Causes of acne include diet, hormones, stress, and poor gut health. Diets high in sugar, dairy, unhealthy fats, and refined carbs trigger inflammation. This not only has negative effects on your gut health, but it also translates to inflamed skin and acne flare-ups³ Stress can also aggravate acne. When you’re stressed, your body releases cortisol. This hormone sends out stress signals that prepare your body for battle. This stimulates inflammatory signaling from your immune system⁴These factors also play a role in poor gut health. Since gut health and acne go hand in hand, these can cause inflammation in both the gut and the skin.

Conventional Treatments For Acne

There are many acne treatments on the market today. Topical and oral medications have been used for decades to treat acne as it’s currently understood. Over-the-counter products typically come in topical face washes, creams, and spot treatments. Benzoyl peroxide is often used for inflammatory acne, while salicylic acid is used for non-inflammatory acne.

Oral medications such as antibiotics and Accutane can be much more aggressive and require a prescription. While these tend to work well, they come with dangerous side effects. For example, Accutane has a black box warning stating it can cause birth defects. Antibiotics can wipe out all the bacteria in the gut, both the good and the bad. This leaves you vulnerable to harmful pathogen overgrowth.

The problem is that most conventional dermatologists treat acne as a skin-deep issue only. Because of this, they may prescribe topical or oral medication that targets the bacteria on the skin. While these can help, they never get to the root cause.

Gut Skin Axis

As I said before, your body is interconnected. This means what happens in your gut affects your mood and immune system. It even affects your skin! The gut skin axis is a term used to describe the relationship between your gut microbiome and your skin. Think of it like a large communication highway. Your skin is the largest organ in your body. It’s responsible for keeping harm out of your body, while also protecting what’s inside your body. Similarly, your gut is responsible for digesting and processing nutrients. In addition, it’s designed to eliminate waste and prevent toxins from entering your bloodstream.

Where there is dysbiosis, there is an imbalance in the gut bacteria. This means that there are too few or too many of certain types of bacteria. This can cause several types of communication problems. Up to 80% of your immune cells live in your gut. These cells communicate with the rest of your body. The gut skin axis is one of the highways your body uses to communicate between tissues and organs. Studies show a strong association between dysbiosis in the gut and skin issues such as acne, dandruff, dermatitis, and even some cancers⁵ Let’s dive deeper into how this works.

Gut Health and Acne

An imbalance in the gut microbiota can contribute to systemic inflammation in the body. Poor diet, stress, and toxins can trigger an immune response. As the immune system fights off whatever pathogen it comes in contact with, it releases inflammation. Chronic inflammation can weaken the gut lining. This breach in the gut wall is what we call leaky gut. When the gut wall junctions are no longer tight, bacteria and viruses can enter the bloodstream. These pathogens then travel to the rest of your body. As a result, you may see skin problems such as acne.

Leaky gut and acne can affect how your body responds to metabolites. Metabolites are intermediate or end products of cellular metabolism. Your body uses metabolites to help with many different body functions. Poor gut health can disrupt metabolite function. This increases your risk for insulin resistance, estrogen dominance, and androgen overload. These hormonal imbalances can be linked to acne production and severity.

Strep Overgrowth In Gut

Streptococcus (more commonly known as Strep) is a type of bacteria that impacts people of all age groups. More famous for its role in sinus and throat infections, strep can also cause UTIs, and pneumonia. Additionally, strep overgrowth in gut can contribute to SIBO and yeast infections.

Your lymphatic system does its best to remove strep, but chronic inflammation can make this difficult if not impossible⁶ A weakened immune system can allow the strep to leave the lymphatic system and move to your skin. This can then show up as more severe forms of acne, such as cystic acne. Cystic acne can be a sign you have a chronic, low-grade streptococcal infection in the liver. Overusing antibiotics can further increase your chances of Group A Strep replicating in your body, causing acne flare-ups.

SIBO and Acne

Remember how strep overgrowth in gut can lead to SIBO and yeast infections? SIBO stands for small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Strep can be one of the billions of bacteria that grow out of control in your small intestine. This overgrowth can trigger inflammation in the gut, along with uncomfortable digestive symptoms. Since the gut skin axis acts like a communication highway, inflammation sends a distress signal to the rest of your body through your immune system. This travels through your body, eventually reaching your skin. Gut health and acne are two peas in a pod. Not having a balanced gut microbiome can disrupt normal skin function.

H pylori and Acne

Heliobactor pylori (H. pylori) is a bacteria that lives in the stomach. Research estimates between 50% to 75% of the world’s population have it. Its job is to regulate stomach acid, and most of the time it doesn’t cause any problems. However, an overgrowth can trigger inflammation and cause problems such as stomach ulcers and other digestive issues. Chronic inflammation can increase antibodies in the blood, leading to skin inflammation. One study found that those with severe acne also had high H.pylori fecal antibodies⁷

Addressing Your Gut Health and Acne

Having acne can be embarrassing and disheartening. Thankfully, addressing your gut health can have a direct impact on clearing up your acne! Let’s consider how testing, diet, supplements, and lifestyle habits can make a difference.

Testing

Dermatologists can diagnose acne just by looking at your skin. However, you’ll have to dig deeper to find out the root cause. A GI map stool test can help determine your specific gut dysbiosis. In addition, it can also detect when factors such as H. pylori are behind your acne breakouts.

In addition to fecal tests, certain blood tests can pick up on inflammation and bacteria overgrowth. For example, an Antistreptolysin O (ASO) blood test can tell you whether there is strep overgrowth⁸

Finally, having a breath test can help you determine whether you’re dealing with SIBO and H pylori.

Diet

Some say you are what you eat. I say you are what you digest. For this reason, adopting a diet free from inflammatory foods allows your gut to heal and repair itself. Since gut health and acne are so closely related, the right diet can also improve your acne. The Myers Way® lifestyle is a proven method that incorporates the 4R approach:

• Remove the bad – Eliminate factors that negatively affect the gut environment with Gut ImmunIGⓇ. This includes all inflammatory and toxic foods. It also includes addressing intestinal infections such as yeast overgrowth and SIBO.  
• Restore what’s missing— Adding digestive enzymes and Gut Restore with Betaine HCL to your daily regimen supports optimal digestion and nutrient absorption. These also assist your body’s intestinal repair and inflammation responses. 
• Reinoculate with healthy bacteria — Restoring beneficial bacteria to your gut helps re-establish a healthy gut environment. 
• Repair the gut — Providing necessary nutrients helps the gut repair itself. L-glutamine is an amino acid that will support the gut lining. Drinking bone broth or collagen will help to heal your gut. You can also supplement with omega-3s, zinc, and herbs such as slippery elm and aloe vera.

Eating plenty of fiber-rich foods further supports optimal gut health and acne outcomes. Choose foods with prebiotics and probiotics to get the most out of your diet. Avoiding sugar and gluten can also prohibit strep overgrowth in gut.

Supplements

Pairing a healthy diet with supplements can speed up gut health and acne healing. Probiotics 100 capsules help increase microbial diversity. A healthy microbiome aids in optimal digestion, immune function, and skin health. Studies find that certain bacteria, especially L. acidophilus and L. bulgaricus improved inflammatory acne lesions in 80% of the subjects!⁹

Addressing leaky gut is another aspect of healing the gut and skin. Leaky Gut Revive®  uses botanical extracts to soothe an inflamed gut. It also has the amino acid L-Glutamine to nourish and repair gut cells. Microb-Clear^® helps balance the gut with a proprietary blend of minerals, fatty acids, and botanical extracts. This formula is especially helpful for those with SIBO.

Lifestyle

A few lifestyle changes may be necessary to optimize gut health and acne outcomes. Don’t take antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. Additionally, ask your doctor about which medications you can wean yourself off of. Reducing stress is another important step in keeping inflammation at bay. Going for walks, getting a massage, or listening to relaxing music can help lower cortisol levels in the body. Reducing your toxic burden by using non-toxic household cleaners and natural skincare can also help limit chemical exposure.

Final Word 

Acne is something no one wants to deal with. It hurts, it’s embarrassing, and it can be a sign something else is going on. Gut health and acne are connected in more ways than one. You can thank the gut skin axis for this. Some of the causes behind acne include estrogen dominance, strep overgrowth in the gut, and poor diets. Whatever the reason, acne can be a complex and challenging condition to treat.

Thankfully, healing the gut can help resolve stubborn acne issues. Calming down inflammation can help jumpstart the gut repair process. Leaky Gut Revive®  is an excellent choice for this. As your gut heals, ensuring the right balance of gut bacteria is critical to keep your skin and immune system in ship shape. For severe acne, I recommend Probiotics 100 capsules. This offers maximum support as you reinoculate good bacteria back into your gut!