Customer Reviews

The Dietary Cure for Acne

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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!

This book was very expensive considering how much I paid for his "Paleo Diet" book. It mentions all the key points about having a healthy eating regimen as in his Paleo Diet book. I thought I would gain a lot more insight to why our skin develops acne. It does mention several explanations and studies. However, much of what is in this book is mentioned in his Paleo Diet book and Paleo Diet for Athletes book already. There were many testimonals from people with bad skin and how they improved after following a strict diet. I could have saved my money by not buying the book and just followed his eating regimen and avoiding processed foods in his original Paleo diet book. So if you have read his other diet books, just stick to that. It is pretty much the same thing.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who has found it useful. Even though my skin problem is not severe, merely annoying, I decided to try it out. The principles explained in this book goes a long way towards enhancing general allover quality of life and healthy living. I think it should be used as a guide to a lifestyle change, and not just a diet. I have started losing weight, I feel great, and my skin tone and texture has greatly improved. I strongly recommend this book.

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.

If there were a manual that describes the entire process of the formation acne, this is it. Amazingly, as complex as it is, this book breaks it down into a form that is easily understood and yet detailed enough that you feel like you really know what is going on. The great thing about that is once you know how something works, it becomes much easier to think about how everything you do affects that process. Everything he tells you in this book is backed by scientific research too, which instilled even more confidence in me as to what I was reading is truth.

The other wonderful thing about this book is that no matter who you are, the diet itself can be applied. If you suffer acne, but are an athlete, or you are seriously wishing to lose some weight, this is a diet that will meet your goals in those areas as well as clear up your acne.

My only beef about this book is that although it really explains the process of acne formation well with scientifically backed research and tells how to alter your diet more specifically to clear up acne, in order to truly understand the diet aspect of it "The Paleo Diet" by Loren Cordain is pretty much a necessary addition to this book, which itself is a good read. Fortunately for me I already owned "The Paleo Diet" and had been utilizing it for a couple months already when I got this book which helped me tweak and understand the process more fully.

That is the only reason I give it 4 stars as opposed to 5, because I know if I needed two books for the whole answer and only had one that had touted to give me everything, I would be slightly peeved.

the dietary cure for acne makes it clear what you may be doing wrong with your diet, and why, and what you can do to truly affect the health of your skin. I purchaced the book along with the paleo diet for athletes 9 monthes ago and have been following the diet fairly stictly, with good results for my skin and outstanding results for my overall health and athletic performance.although this book is a very good overview of the process of acne and a general guideline how and why to change your diet to improve your acne,i would highly recomend puchacing the paleo diet or the paleo diet for athletes. that being said, i also feel if you already have one of those books the dietary cure for acne dosn't offer any new advise and realy would only be useful to understand the prossess of acne, giving one more motivation to follow the paleo diet.Also i feel diet is the most important cure, however in some cases not a total cure. my recomendation for the person truely looking to improve thier overall health would be to skip the dietary cure, purchase the paleo diet and follow it, and purchase The Acne Cure by Terry J Dubrow. however, for a qick read that just may change your life, the dietary cure for acne can do wonders on its own

I'm a Nutritional Biochemist in Australia with around 30 years' clinical experience. In practice, I have seen heart-breaking cases of acne and the despair that such a condition brings to the person afflicted by it. Equally, I despair that such patients have been advised that diet has nothing to do with the condition. Sadly that comment is born out of sheer ignorance.
Simply cutting out the 'junk food', however, is not enough and 'The Dietary Cure for Acne' confirms this. When one understands how important it is to optimise the function of the cell by regulating pH, providing the correct fatty acid balance and glycaemic load among other things, the cells can start to work normally again.

Loren Cordain's excellent book offers very effective therapy for acne but his principles apply equally to a host of other modern illnesses. The cellular imbalances which can lead to acne affect every cell of the human body. Because we are all born with different weaknesses, these cellular imbalances will be reflected in different diseases; one person may be susceptible to arthritis, another to asthma and yet others to acne. Yet in each case, restoring imbalances in cell function to normal may be all that is needed to correct the condition. There is nothing nore satisfying as a Clinician than to see patients respond, easily and naturally to seemingly-incurable conditions.

Brilliant work Dr Cordain! 'The Dietary Cure for Acne' is a great read and appeals to both the technical and lay reader, especially readers who have struggled to find a long term solution to their skin problems. Adopting the principles described in the book comes with a bonus - a means of becoming well and staying well for the rest of your life - something that you could never achieve with drug therapy. Christine Houghton

Unlike a lot of diet book writers, Loren Cordain has a solid background in science and a thorough mastery of the history of what humans eat and how it affects them. I am 28 and suffer from a lot of acne --except when I stay on the eating plan that Cordain outlines in this book. It works. The only problems I have with it are that it is a very difficult diet to stick to if you are addicted to baked bread goods like I am, and that (as Cordain acknowledges elsewhere) it is not a diet that can feed 6.6 billion people. (It is just not possible for us to feed that many people without feeding some a lot of grain at this point.) But if you are lucky enough to live in the Western world and can afford to avoid eating grain, dairy, etc., this is a great plan to follow. Cordain's explanations of how certain foods affect your skin are extremely detailed. It was very helpful to read about why it is that some foods create problems for us rather than having to just take somebody's word for it. The pictures and diagrams are very colorful and balance some rather technical material. Please note that the book is shorter than your typical paperback.

Believe me over many years I have tried just about every acne drug and treatment and nothing works like the Paleo diet. This book actually explains the whole process of acne and how to avoid it. For the sake of skin and for your health... buy this book.