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Are you being troubled by Sinusitis?
It is said that around 30 per cent of all people suffer from sinusitis or sinus infection at least once each year. Sinuses are little air pockets inside the skull bones. They are located to either side of the nose, behind and in between the eyes,...

Are You Cleaning Or Disinfecting?
One of the most frequently asked questions regarding the effects of cleaning is whether cleaning products kill germs, or in what extent micro-organisms can be aniquilated by these products. The misconception comes from the amount of...

Conscience
When I was a child my parents told me what was right and wrong, school had its rules and church had its sins. To be a good boy, all I needed to do was obey all the do’s and don’ts. If I did, I was led to believe I was following my conscience. ...

The Last Line of Defense Against Medication Errors: What You Need to Know to Keep your Family Safe
This is a true story. Yesterday, I picked up a new antibiotic prescription for my daughter from my local pharmacy. (We recently adopted my daughter from India where she had recurrent ear infections resulting in severe hearing loss. And,...

The Skinny on Cholesterol
There is always a fair amount of controversy surrounding cholesterol. It's in the news, in our diets, and in our bodies. Let's start with some background. Cholesterol is a molecule that is in the "sterol" family. This family of chemicals are the...

 
Acne Food - What To Eliminate From Your Diet

Annemarie Colbin, in her book "Food and Healing", makes the interesting point that diets themselves, even healing diets, are not a cure per se. They do often work, but their route to health is actually a product of supporting the body's own healing processes.

Her view on skin conditions like acne is interesting. She sees acne as a result of the regular organs of elimination, the kidneys and lungs, being unable to eliminate all the toxic waster matter that we ingest into our bodies. She sees certain foods, like those that make up what she calls the Standard American Diet, as placing too great a stress on our body's ability to process them, at least if symptoms of ill health are appearing like acne. She has found from her own observations that a change in diet often clears up even the large, purplish types of acne. She found this with her own experiences with acne. Annemarie says it takes about ten days to three months to work.

Annemarie describes acne as falling into two main causes in her approach. The first is associated with fat, protein and excess sugar. Here she recommends eliminating foods like milk, cheese, ice cream, fatty meats, nuts and peanut butter. The second category is associated with what she calls mineral-water excess, which is s term she uses to describe all substances taken out of their natural context. She mentions iodized salt, or even multi vitamins or supplements like kelp. This is very much a personal relationship as what negatively affects one person may not do so for


another.

The link between excess minerals or vitamin supplements relates to Colbin's idea of balance, which is that a living system always seeks to return to balance. Anatomy and physiology textbooks even define the processes of the body that way, and it is certainly a common idea in natural health systems, especially traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Colbin writes that excess minerals and vitamin supplements lead to an increased need for the macro nutrients protein, fat and carbohydrates. Salt is also in this category. The idea is that these vitamins and minerals, taken out of the context of the food itself, will lead to the body craving actual food to create a sense of balance. If we have a multi vitamin at mealtimes, within the RDA, I don't believe this is going to present a problem. Especially given that our foods are often depleted of the range of essential nutrients that they would normally have if they were grown organically and in nutrient dense soils. But it is certainly an argument in favor of approaching nutritional supplements in a balanced way also. Some people mistakenly think more is better. This clearly illustrates it is not.

References: Annemarie Colbin, Food As Healing (Ballantine Books, New York)

Simon Mills, The Essential Book Of Herbal Medicine (Penguin Arkana)

About the author:

If you'd like more at home acne treatments, then check out this article.

 

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