Naturalpath

Q: I am a baby boomer and I still have acne! I thought the one thing that I could look forward to with aging would be clear skin. What can I do to get rid of this?

A: I completely empathize with you! One of the things that got me involved with nutrition was the exact same problem! I suffered from acne starting in my early teen years, all the way up to my mid-thirties. I went to countless dermatologists and was consistently informed that diet had nothing to do with it! I couldn’t believe it but I also couldn’t find anything to support my theories until fairly recently.

Your skin is your major detoxifying organ. You not only “are what you eat” but you also wear what you eat all over your face! It turns out that there are specific things that can absolutely exacerbate acne and increase the inflammatory response.

First of all, you have to make sure that you have good digestion. Low levels of hydrochloric acid in the stomach, a condition known as hypochlorhydria, can increase your risk of Rosecea. After the age of 35, our endogenous production of HCL starts to decline. It can also be reduced due to stress, poor diet, caffeine, alcohol and OTC drugs. It can get diluted if you consume excess fluids with your meals-I limit clients to 4 ounces with meals and ensure that they consume their 8-12 glasses of pure spring water in between meals. Besides helping with digestion, HCL also helps kill off bad bacteria to prevent it from overgrowing in the small intestine. Bacteria can exacerbate acne as well which is why probiotics can be of help here too. Probiotics help raise the numbers of good bacteria while killing off the bad ones.

If you suffer from excessive oil production, (if you are a menstruating woman you will especially notice this the week before your period) you may benefit from taking high dose Pantethine(vitamin B5). This has a similar mechanism of action to the drug Accutane, a drug so potent that you must go through counseling and multiple pregnancy tests before you are allowed to take it. Pantethine, taken in doses of 10 grams a day can have similar benefits but without the toxicity. I have clients use it for 3 months at this dose and then gradually decrease it down to a maintenance dose of 5 grams per day.

There is a specific compound in dairy that can cause acne. Additionally high glycemic carbohydrates and lectin rich grains can also exacerbate acne. This has been researched thoroughly by Dr. Loren Cordain, a savvy physiologist and author of a new book, The Dietary Cure for Acne. He details the role of diet in acne and explains the biochemistry of how dairy products cause acne.

Another important dietary shift is to reduce your intake of pro-inflammatory fats and to increase your intake of the anti-inflammatory fatty acids EPA, DHA and GLA. Acne and Rosecea are inflammatory conditions and one of the quickest ways to reduce inflammation at a cellular level is by making an oil change. Trade your pro-inflammatory vegetable oils for heart healthy, skin rejuvenating anti-inflammatory choices from extra virgin olive oil, cold water wild fish, raw nuts, seeds and avocados. I also have clients supplement daily with a professional brand of EPA, DHA and GLA. GLA has been found to help in several inflammatory skin disorders and also helps improve skin hydration.

Q: I have heard mixed reviews about juice cleansing as a form of detoxification, and I am thinking about trying a cleanse. What do you think about this?

A: I am a big fan of detoxification. Even if we stop polluting our world right now, we will be dealing with the past damage for decades to come. I believe that the healthiest people in this millennium will be those who are the best detoxifiers. This is why I am totally against juice fasting and fasting in general for detoxification. The body detoxifies in two phases. In the first phase the body releases the toxins from the tissues where they are stored. In the second phase the body eliminates these toxins through the sweat, feces and urine.

Q: I was on antidepressants (SSRIs) for a few years, but I feel like I am ready to go off of them. This is my idea, and I haven’t spoken to my doctor about this yet. Throughout my time taking the antidepressants I have gained weight. I think this is a side effect of the pills I was taking. Along with the weight gain, my most bothersome side effects were abdominal pain and loss of sexual interest. What do you recommend I do when weaning of the pills to ensure that I will balance back to my weight prior to taking these drugs?

A: Congratulations on your progress! This is definitely something that you will want to discuss with your doctor and do under his supervision. As you have discovered, SSRIs have some tough side effects including weight gain, apathy, low sex drive and insomnia. Some of the side effects may be more difficult to deal with than the initial mood disorder.

Q: I have heard that "bad" bacteria in my stomach may contribute to “weight loss resistance”, so I started taking probiotics (good bacteria). The problem is I continue to gain weight.

Education

After graduating from UCLA in 1986, JJ went to graduate school in Biomechanics at California State University Northridge, taking one year off to do graduate work in Sports Medicine at University of Miami. She went on to pursue a PhD in exercise physiology, nutrition and aging at USC.

"The area that I really am interested in talking more about that’s fascinating and not really well known is this area of gut disbiosis or bacterial overgrowth.

"First of all, our body is made up of cells, but it’s also made up of bacteria. People are often surprised to hear this. And we have more bacteria on our body than we do cells.

"If it’s good bacteria, that’s great. This is our immune defense - our gut’s our big immune defense, so this is good.

"But what happens because of poor diet, because of chronic antibiotic use, because of caffeine or alcohol or stress or low stomach acid that happens due to aging. So you’re hearing all these things and you’re probably going me, me, me. You can start to get too much bad bacteria.

"Functional medicine is different than what we think of more as traditional in that we’re really looking at not so much you have a problem, but why do you have that problem? Let's trace it back now through pathways of how the body works and find out where there’s a block, maybe where there’s a missing nutrient that we can then feed back to make the body operate correctly, to make the metabolism work well."

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“I’ve been a nutritionist and an exercise physiologist for years, but I’ve been a mom for 11 years now, and I’m shuddering now at some of the advice I used to give to moms, because it’s a whole different ball game when you have the kids.

“Exposure equals preference. We have a responsibility to teach our kids how to eat correctly. What I’ve taught my kids to do is eat the good stuff first.

“And kids want to do the right thing. You need to teach them. So it’s not that they can’t have things like pizza. It’s that these are seen as treats.

“They understand the difference between things they need to eat on a regular basis, always getting their vegetables, always getting some protein, and the things that are treats.

“We also don’t do breakfast cereal and milk in my house, so we’ll have different things. We could have a grass-fed hamburger for breakfast.

“It’s always funny to me when people talk about a mind body connection because they’re, to me, one. It’s not that there’s a connection – if you’re not going to wrap your brain around it, your body’s not going to follow.

“The very first starting point for me working with anybody is ‘Why are we here? What are the goals?’ And you know what I find as we start to talk? - and it’s so sad to me. Your goals are never going to be bigger than your self-concept, right? And so their goals are truly their limitations.

“What I do to get people to really get those limits broken is I start with a list, a goals checklist, of all these things: more energy, look better, loose twenty pounds, have better body composition, be fitter. All these things that they go ‘I want this, oh I never thought of that.’

“So we start thinking and they slowly move them out, because they’re not too crazy.

“Think about it, we know that if you’re healthier, if you're fitter, if you have more energy there are a lot more doors open to you. So the more important thing is not just have more energy, be leaner, but what does that then look like? How does that impact your life? So you’re leaner, now what would you do?