Got Milk? Got Acne?

Especially if you suffer from acne.

Several large-scale studies have found a strong connection between drinking milk and acne. For example one study, published at American Journal of Dermatology, found that those who drank two or three glasses of milk a day had 44% higher chance of developing severe acne compared with people who didn't drink milk.

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SIDENOTE: Though I'm only talking about milk and acne, this applies to all dairy products (such as cheese, yogurt and ice-cream). Most of them are just concentrated forms of milk - for example it takes 10 pounds of milk to make a pound of cheese.
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But how can a glass of nature's perfect food create such havoc on your face?

Hmmm... let me count the ways...

Milk opens the sebum tap.

Drinking milk is like smearing sebum on your skin pores. And I really mean it. Every glass of milk you drink creates more sebum.

Nearly all commercial milk comes from pregnant cows. Pregnant cows' milk contains hormones that increase sebum production.

Milk contains dihydrotestosterone (DHT) precursors, including 5a-pregnanedione and 5a-androstanedione. These hormones are only few steps away from DHT. DHT signals the skin glands to produce more sebum, and researchers agree DHT is a prime acnegen.

And that's not all.

You skin already contains the enzymes requires for converting those precursors to DHT.

So with every glass of milk the DHT levels in your skin glands increase, and that means more sebum.

Milk contains IGF-1 and other growth hormones

It's no surprise milk contains powerful growth hormones. It's supposed to make things grow. Milk turns a newborn calf into 1.5 ton steer.

When you drink milk, you'll get those same growth hormones. Because you don't need them anymore they are going to cause more harm than good.

For acne victims it's especially troubling that milk contains insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Like I explained in what causes acne page, this hormone stimulates sebum production and increases skin cell turnover (=more dead skin cells to block the pores and faster aging of the skin).

Unfortunately the bovine (cow's) version of IGF-1 is identical with humans. And, contrary to what FDA has claimed, it does survive digestion and it goes into your bloodstream.

Dairy industry's own studies confirm this.

In a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association (October, 1999, Vol. 99, No. 10) dairy researchers studied 204 healthy men and women. These people regularly consumed less than 1.5 servings of dairy products a day. They divided the participants into two groups. One was the control group that didn't make any changes. The other group was asked to consume 3 servings of dairy products a day.

The results?

"Serum level of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) rose by 10% in the milk group", write the researchers.

Of course the dairy industry puts their spin on this. They say IGF-1 helps bone density. Unfortunately research quite clearly shows that the more milk you drink the weaker your bones become. IGF-1 levels correlate closely with incidents of many cancers and acne.

This is from another large-scale study.

The most consistent finding was a positive association between protein intake with circulating IGF-I concentration (174, 188, 201, 192, and 196 ng/ml across quintiles of protein intake; P = 0.002), which was largely attributable to milk intake.

Dietary Correlates of Plasma Insulin-like Growth Factor I and Insulin-like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3 Concentrations

So, more milk = more IGF-1 = more acne.

And if that's not bad enough, milk also increases insulin levels.

Milk, insulin and acne

If you looked at the what causes acne page you noticed that insulin also increases acne.

Drinking milk significantly increases your insulin levels. Here again we can rely on studies funded by the dairy industry.

The blood glucose and plasma insulin responses to test milk samples were studied in healthy normal volunteers. After an overnight fast the subjects were given 500 ml of either regular fat free milk (abt 25 g lactose) or 500 ml of new low-lactose fat free milk (3.75 g lactose and 4.25 g fructose). Blood glucose levels were not significantly altered after either milk sample, but plasma insulin responses were significantly elevated after milk consumption.

Blood glucose and plasma insulin responses to fat free milk and low-lactose fat free milk in healthy human volunteers

Insulin is one more pathway for milk to cause acne.

A yummy cocktail of bacteria, pus, chemicals and antibiotic

Most milk has measurable quantities of herbicides, pesticides, dioxins (up to 200 times the safe levels), up to 52 powerful antibiotics, blood, pus, feces, bacteria and viruses.

Milk doesn't have to be pure white as fresh fallen snow to comply with the State and Federal Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. According to the regulations one 8 ounce glass of milk (240 milliliters) can contain 180 million white blood cells and still be fine for you to drink. In a study of milk sold in New York State the average SCC was 363,000 cells/ml. These white blood cells were produced by the cow to fight off the 24,400 bacteria/ml found in this milk.

Pasteurization does kill some of the bacteria but not all. When milk is pasteurized it's heated to 162 degree Fahrenheit for 15 seconds. To sanitize water we are told to boil it (212 degrees F) for several minutes.

What does that tell you?

And even if all the bacteria in the milk would be dead they would still be in the milk. Your immune system still needs to clear them out of the bloodstream. That means more burden and more inflammation.

Pesticides, chemical and antibiotics in milk are going to create their own problems. Via the inflammation pathway they can directly increase acne.

I hope you are beginning to see why you shouldn't drink milk if you want to cure acne.

For these and many other reasons milk is one of the first items in the 'foods to eliminate' list in my book Clear for Life.

So, for clear, acne-free skin wipe out the milk mustache.

Do you have experience with milk and acne? Share it here, and let others learn from your experience.

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

I had an opposite experience  it's funny.. bfore I used to drink tons of milk, eat lots of cheese and had very mild acne
I stopped consuming diary products and my acne has gotten a ...

Thank You  Oh no. I've been drinking milk FOREVER. And I'm 16 and just started breaking out. Thanks so much for this little tip, I will now be more careful about ...