Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Acne getting you down? Looking at the root cause and simple solutions.

Aside from clogged pores creating small whiteheads or blackheads, acne is generally an internal issue.  Especially problematic and hormonal acne producing deep, sore red acne or underlying multiple bumps that show up.

If you understood how the body works and eliminates toxin, you would understand it is fairly simple fix that does not require prescription drugs.

If you can imagine problematic acne as internal toxins that are erupting to coming to the surface as a way to escape, you are half way there.  The red sore acne can be compared to a toxic volcano. But where do all the toxins come from?

There are several aspects to acne. I like to start with the face if the person does not have an issue with weight or digestion. In your cheeks by your jaw on both sides are glands called the Parotid Glands. Though we know a lot about the body, we do not know everything yet but what we do know is that the Parotid Gland is your body’s first defense against toxins entering the body.  The easiest way to explain it to an adult is when you take a shot of alcohol or take a sip of dry red wine…if you pay attention you will notice that your cheeks contract and suck in the toxins from the drink.  You may experience a headache or neck stiffness following (usually the next day) if the Parotid cannot catch or process all the toxins in a timely manner.  Or you may find the next day that you are starting to break out.

The Parotid Gland works with the Liver (basically the master toxin handler) to eliminate toxins from the body.  Therefore, if the Liver is overloaded, the Parotid is not able to hand off it’s holdings until the Liver gets caught up. That could take several days for some people, yet other people, only a few hours.

Many things can overtax the liver. Stress, mineral deficiency, vitamin deficiency, lack of essential fatty acids (or the inability to process vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids) inactivity: which causes less movement of blood and also if you are sitting slumped over, you can be compressing the liver and restricting it’s freedom which is why is it always a good idea to get up and stretch after long periods of sitting.

Hormones require proper mineral balance and stress as we know it is basically nonexistent with proper mineral balance. There are several factors that I am aware of that can interfere with mineral absorption however. One key factor is a lack of Essential Fatty Acids (EFS’s) and even some people have issues breaking down EFA’s.  EFA’s help minerals absorb and not all EFA’s are equal.

Many medical doctors recently have been focusing on Vitamin D (which is a vitamin that your body produces when it is exposed to sunlight when there are EFA’s available in your body) What I have found is that they are not considering the EFA  factor and why the EFA factor is not working…why.

In my research, I have read that some people have trouble breaking down EFA’s so they need to introduce “predigested” EFA’s into the system.  I have found with many of my patients that when I simply have them take a broken down predigested EFA, everything changes. Their energy increases, their minds clear up, they are able to sleep better, they have less stress and their acne goes away. I believe the reason is that now their body can process minerals.

I believe minerals are the modern day key to health. Many of my patients refer to me as the mineral doctor simply because I find most everyone is mineral deficient because their response is always better when a good multi-mineral is added to their regimen.  If we look at the way we eat, the food quality and lack of mineral content in the food we eat, we can find the answer to our deficiencies.

In Chinese Medicine they say we are born with Original Qi (Chee)….Qi can be described as a type of energy but I like to compare it to our bone quality.  If your parents were in good health when they conceive you, you are born with strong Original Qi (or strong bones). Since bones are constantly building up and breaking down (they are not stagnant) over time, our bones can become depleted and if not replenished or built up with minerals, they become less dense, weak and fragile and as we age we might discover we have holes in our bones or something called osteopenia (meaning little bone) or osteoporosis (meaning porous bone).

So through our digesting is how we rebuilt our bones.  Several generations ago, it was common practice to eat meat, rich in minerals and soups and stews cooked for days with meat bones, which added minerals to our diets. Dark leafy and root vegetables were common. Today people rarely support eating beef, root veggies are almost non-existent and only the health-conscious go for dark leafy veggies.

No wonder we all feel so much stress and anxiety, have weight problems as a result of hormone imbalances, infertility or inability to carry a baby to term and cannot process our toxins resulting in problematic acne.

Since food is our best source of nutrition and since our food is so depleted these days, and if you are already deficient in minerals you would probably not be able to eat enough of the right food to restore your reserves, I have my patients supplement with food-based nutrition.  I personally prefer a product line that you can purchase through health care practitioners because it is made from organic, whole food and super potent.  It is currently impossible to purchase anything of this quality over-the-counter because of how the food and drug administration (FDA) regulates labeling.  Food would never have exactly the same levels because different batches and even from one to another it can vary (for example one apple could have more or less of something than another) so it is impractical to make a different label for each bottle.  Over the counter supplements are considered nutriceuticals because they are created in a lab to make them compliant for the FDA labeling.  Whole food based supplements have minimal labeling, so you will only find minimal labeling and they are sold through practitioners because the patient would be informed through the practitioner and the supplements would be regulated by a professional.  Generally nutriceuticals are 10-35% absorption compared to whole food based supplements which are 100%.  This makes it more cost effective to purchase whole food supplement.  Instead of paying 10.00 and only being able to absorb 3.50 worth of product with a nutriceutical, you would either have to spend 35.00 and take more of the nutriceutical or take less of a whole food based supplement.  The company I like is Standard Process TM and their prices are very reasonable for the quality.  I recommend that you look them up online and read about the company to get a better understanding of the product but from what I experience with my patients, they offer the best available.

If you are chronically ill, sometimes even nutriceuticals can help improve your situation, because you still get the 10-35% and if you are accustomed to nothing, 10-35% is a big increase for your body.  But what most people find is after a month or 2, the results reach a plateau and I find this is because you actually need something better to move forward.

When it comes to Acne however, you really might consider whole food supplements to avoid any possible added toxicity from the nutriceuticals. Since all supplements are not equal, generally the less expensive it is, the cheaper the ingredients and some lesser quality ingredients can actually interfere with the body and may not be bioavailable (able to be processes by the body)


There are a few other issues that can add to acne: poor intestinal flora, enzyme failure etc.. These might be considerations if you are also overweight or have issues with digestion. In this case, I would start working with the small intestine first but we can leave that for another day.

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