BACKGROUND
Dietary habits may play a non-negligible role in the development, duration, and severity of acne, as shown in past critical review articles on such association.
Article breakdown
Diet and acne: review of the evidence from 2009 to 2020.
International journal of dermatology • 2021 Jun • Vol 60, 672-685. PMID 33462816.
This paper reviewed studies from 2009 to April 2020 on whether diet is linked with acne. Across the reviewed research, foods with a high glycemic index/load, dairy products, fatty foods, and chocolate were associated with acne more often, while fatty acids, fruits, and vegetables were associated with less acne. Because this is a systematic review of mixed earlier studies, it summarizes patterns in the evidence rather than proving that any one food directly causes or prevents acne.
In short
What this paper found
This paper reviewed studies from 2009 to April 2020 on whether diet is linked with acne.
Across the reviewed research, foods with a high glycemic index/load, dairy products, fatty foods, and chocolate were associated with acne more often, while fatty acids, fruits, and vegetables were associated with less acne.
Because this is a systematic review of mixed earlier studies, it summarizes patterns in the evidence rather than proving that any one food directly causes or prevents acne.
Deep dive
What the paper is actually saying
Why This Paper Exists
Earlier reviews had suggested that diet might matter for how acne develops, lasts, or becomes severe. The authors updated the evidence by looking at the most recent decade of published studies.
What The Authors Wanted To Answer
The authors wanted to know what the scientific literature from 2009 to April 2020 shows about links between acne and diet, including foods such as dairy, chocolate, fatty foods, and foods with a high glycemic index/load.
How The Study Was Done
This was a systematic review using PubMed. The authors searched for studies on acne and diet-related terms, then included articles that met their eligibility criteria. The final set contained both interventional studies and observational studies, so this paper combined findings from earlier research rather than reporting one new experiment.
What The Study Found
The review included 53 articles. Overall, the reviewed studies suggested that high GI/GL foods, dairy products, fatty foods, and chocolate may promote acne, while fatty acids, fruit, and vegetable intake may be protective. The abstract also says that the effects of specific versions of foods, such as different kinds of milk, dairy products, or chocolate, are still unresolved.
Takeaway
The review supports the idea that diet may be related to acne, but some details remain uncertain. The strongest practical message is that certain dietary patterns were repeatedly linked with acne in prior studies, while healthier foods were linked with less acne, yet the evidence is not settled for specific food subtypes.
Limits
What this abstract does not fully answer
The abstract does not describe how study quality or risk of bias was assessed, so it is unclear how much weight was given to stronger versus weaker studies.
The included evidence was mixed, with many observational studies and some uncontrolled trials, which limits how confidently causation can be inferred.
The abstract says that the role of specific versions of foods, such as different kinds of milk or chocolate, remains unresolved, so the review does not settle those details.
Key numbers
Numbers the abstract makes important
53 articles
Total number of studies that met the review's eligibility criteria.
11 interventional clinical trials
Studies that actively tested a diet-related change or exposure rather than only observing habits.
7 randomized controlled trials
The higher-rigor interventional studies in which participants were assigned to groups by randomization.
4 uncontrolled open-label studies
Interventional studies without a comparison control group, which makes results harder to interpret.
42 observational studies
Studies that looked for associations between diet and acne without assigning diets.
17 case-control studies
Observational studies comparing people with acne to people without acne and looking back at exposures such as diet.
Source abstract
Original abstract sections
METHODS
The aim of this systematic review is to supplement data available on scientific literature spanning the last 10 years by inserting the keywords "acne" or "acne vulgaris" and "diet", "nutrition", "food", "chocolate", "dairy", "whey protein", "fatty acid", or "drink" in the timeframe "January 2009-April 2020" within the PubMed database.
RESULTS
Fifty-three reviewed articles met eligibility criteria. They included 11 interventional clinical trials (seven randomized controlled trials and four uncontrolled open label studies) and 42 observational studies (17 case-control and 22 cross-sectional studies, and three descriptive studies).
CONCLUSIONS
This review reinforces the notion of a rapidly growing exponential trend of interest in this subject by the scientific community. Acne-promoting factors include high GI/GL food, dairy products, fat food, and chocolate, whereas acne-protective factors include fatty acids, fruit, and vegetable intake. The role played by specific dietary components pertaining to different foods, as done for milk (full-fat/whole, reduced-fat, low-fat/skim milk), dairy products (milk cream, ice cream, yogurt, cheese, etc.), or chocolate (cocoa, dark/milk chocolate), remains an unsolved issue and objective of future research.