Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
a great starting point yet not quite complete, May 13, 2008
I have eaten pretty well since I was a teenager, but when my daughter began to develop acne, we discovered this book which cut to the chase even beyond eating organically. She had already not eaten sugar for about a year when we bought the book, but it was very informative for her and so very inspiring. I have also been eating the diet pretty closely and feel great too.
As was mentioned in other reviews, it was disappointing not to have more menu suggestions and the website only had a very few offerings of recipes. I consulted the Paleo Diet book and although it was a little helpful, there was contradicting information to the Acne book (about sweet potatoes and nuts, for instance) so we weren't sure what to do in those cases. Additionally, Dr. Cordain suggests adding one food group back in at a time each month, but instead of a specific food given as an example, he gives pizza as the example which has flour and cheese together....??? two very likely candidates to cause acne.
I was also surprised that Dr. Cordain didn't even give mention to the fact that there might be a link between the problems people are experiencing with grains and the fact that we are not soaking the grains ahead of time, which breaks down phytates (the part of grains that make them quite indigestible). Soaking grains is an ancient practice as well and might very well help many people have a plant-based source of protein that there bodies can then assimilate.
The amount of protein in ratio to veggies and fruits has been a big question for me about this diet. My daughter seems to want to eat a lot of meat (mostly chicken) and fruit. And she does always seem hungry, constantly foraging.
So, although I can see that this is very helpful and finally provides a scientifically-based explanation for acne, it really seems like there is a lot more to further this research as well as being far from a complete resource. I've had to purchase many more diet books, and search out interesting recipes as the months pass. And that, too, should be mentioned: my daughter has improved skin but she is still getting some new lesions and it has been almost 3 months. A great starting point yet not quite complete.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally: an answer I have been looking for, April 12, 2008
I have been suffering from acne for almost 20 years, mild to moderate, but very annoying case. I can honestly say I have been eating healthy all my life, but appears that wasn't enough. From personal experience I knew there was a great connection between food and acne. Finally there is scientific evidence and proof of that! The book is not a quick fix diet, but rather a life style, a long term goal of achieving clear skin and staying healthy for life! Prior to reading this book I have followed Dr. N. V. Perricone's anti-inflammatory diet plan for about 2 years. It kept my acne somewhat under control, but I still had occasional flare-ups. Dr. Cordain's diet plan is more restrictive, but not too hard to follow up if you already eat reasonably healthy (meaning whole foods). The book has a lot of scientific explanations, but at the end there is a simple list of foods to avoid, which most of health-conscious people don't eat anyway. There is a long list of food to eat and trust me, you will not be starving. You can eat reasonable amounts of food and loose weight if you are overweight and then maintain it for rest of your life. Think lifelong goal of healthy skin and the whole body rather than quick fix for a week or so. I can honestly say nothing works like a miracle. I follow Dr. Cordain's diet plan and it is a slow but steady progress. I almost don't get any new breakouts, skin looks brighter and smoother after about 2 months. This book is well worth to spend money for. Do good for your skin and whole body!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great read--highly recommend. , April 11, 2008
This book was amazing. I highly recommend it. Cordain explains his diet well, and I've never been so free of cravings in my life. In the first two weeks my skin became dramatically less oily and I started feeling better. Over the course of the next three months my skin cleared up dramatically, and I feel much better, particularly when following the diet. Once your acne clears up, it's great to have clear, visible feedback from your skin on how you're eating and whether it's healthy or not.
My one warning is it did take more like three months for me to really see a difference. My gut feeling is that this was because for the first few months I would sometimes eat too much protein. Dr. Cordain mentioned in a recent newsletter that diets are often between 19-35% protein, so even though it's high protein, you can still get too much. I found on days after eating too much protein my skin was really dry and flaky. After a month of eating between 19 and 35% protein, my acne just totally cleared. It was totally amazing...
Then I tried adding foods back in to my diet... and after one month... my acne came back, though different people have different thresholds before their acne returns. I, personally, enjoy being able to feel the difference in my health that the diet makes. It's so nice to be able to eat an unhealthy meal and feel it the next day. It makes behavior change so much easier. I have a friend who managed to resist all the Christmas treats on this diet, which she'd never been able to do before. Her acne also cleared up within a month. :)
I think Cordain explains the diet and acne in a clear, understandable way. Yet, he is also a very respected scientist with published papers in Archives of Dermatology. I admire what he and Valerie Treloar and collaborators are trying to do, which is to engage in scientific discussion on the link between diet and acne. This book includes results from a three month study showing a paleo-like diet significantly reduced acne in many study participants. I'm impressed that Cordain waited for the scientific paper to come out before publishing the book. Even with the peer reviewed article though, there is still a LOT of debate around whether diet causes acne and what is or is not a healthy diet. I would recommend this book to anyone who has acne and would recommend this diet for any healthy adult to try, particularly with the clarification on protein. It's just given me a much better intuition of what is healthy and what is not and a much better intuition of what is healthy for me, personally--rather than just the average American Joe, who doesn't have acne at 25. It's going to take years before the scientific community agrees on what is or is not a healthy diet, and even then people still react differently to different foods. Currently, we really don't know what causes osteoporosis, which is why unless your dermatologist is really on the ball, you're not going to hear about the information in this book from him. I would recommend trying this diet, learning all you can about your body and your own individual response to food. I can say on a personal level that this book has changed my life and eating habits more than any other and also got rid of those pesky additional ten pounds I couldn't get rid of. I couldn't recommend a book more highly and would recommend purchase of the book and careful study to take charge of your health.
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by Alan C. Logan
