One year during a family reunion I noticed the weirdest thing about my cousin’s eating habits. All 7 of us cousins were eating our Chocolate Chip Mint Italian Water Ice for the day, when I noticed the weirdest thing. My cousin was picking out the chocolate chips and not eating them, which she had never done before. Naturally I asked her what she was doing and why she was wasting chocolate chips. She answered back that she wasn’t eating chocolate anymore because it causes acne. When I heard this answer I asked her if she was crazy.
I have consumed a lot of chocolate over the years and haven’t experienced any problems with acne. This is true for my mom and brother as well, so when I heard my cousin say it causes acne I was surprised and naturally curious to see if this was actually true.
Acne occurs when oil and dead skin cells clog hair follicles. Does chocolate consumption increase the risk of clogging the hair follicles?
All of the research concludes that it doesn’t with Web MD reporting about one specific experiment at the University of Pennsylvania where Dr. Albert Kligman conducted an experiment where he gave teens with acne real chocolate bars and others bars that tasted like chocolate. The teens didn’t know which of the bars they were given. The results were that the chocolate bars produced no more acne than the non chocolate bars.
The conclusion seems to be that chocolate does not cause oil and dead skin cells to clog hair follicles, which is what causes acne.
All of you fellow chocoholics can rejoice because chocolate does not cause blemishes in skin.
Sources:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acne/basics/causes/con-20020580
http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/features/chocolate-and-acne
Bradley, I always thought chocolate was bad for my skin, but that doesn’t stop me from grabbing a Snicker’s bar at the convenient store. Also, that same conception goes for soda too! Soda and chocolate can have tremendous effects on your health, such as obesity. Remember Andrew’s lesson? Remember the video he showed us and the narrator was reading us the statistics?
You are lucky! I guess some people don’t react to foods the same. Well I’m pretty sure that’s true. My friend can eat 10 slices of pizza, a milkshake, mozzarella sticks and fries and be fine because her metabolism is so fast . Me, on the other hand, I’d blow up and gain 20 pounds.
I don’t think this is a well conducted study. There’s the possibility of chance and third confounding factors. What if the sample group just had great skin? I know I have naturally oily skin and sugar goes straight to my face, thighs and sides. I think your conclusion only goes for some people and not all. Like I said, some people respond differently to foods. Maybe the scientist didn’t consider if some participants wore make up when they were being observed. Were they boys or girls? How old were exactly? 13? 13-19 I think that would be a nice gap. How many teens were observed? 20? 2 million? That’d make a huge difference.
Oh my word thank you for this revelation. I hate it when people come up with random links between good food and things that I detest. Following on from the comment about there are also many other benefits to chocolate consumption (in the link below) so as to give you more reason to eat chocolate.
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/benefits-of-chocolate?page=1
It’s interesting that your topic covers chocolate causing acne because I’ve always heard that chocolate is good for the skin. In this article it says that eating dark chocolate is actually good for your skin and helps it to remain youthful as well as less susceptible to sun burns.