Is it possible that the liver be liable for your acne breakouts?
Several acne patients believe they can blame the liver for their skin problems; this is very prevalent among those who are familiar with alternative health.
Your skin may have to help the liver at times, and this can lead to skin problems. The liver and the kidneys are responsible for keeping your body free from toxins. If they can’t manage the load, then the skin and other secondary detoxification organs have to share the burden. In this case toxins are eliminated through the skin.
Toxins passing through the skin cause zits in two ways. First, toxins create an ideal setting for acne causing bacteria to blossom on your skin. Second, as these toxins pass through the skin they cause inflammation and irritate it.
Liver blockage can lead to zits also indirectly. The liver also regulates hormone levels; case in point androgens. The liver also affects insulin levels, though only indirectly. Both of these hormones affect how much oil your skin produces.
Liver flush: the answer to acne?
Natural health experts recommend liver flushing as the solution for congested liver. This is supposed to get rid of the excessive toxins in the liver. During liver flush you fast for a day and then gulp a blend of olive oil and lemon juice.
However there are few problems with the liver flush. While it’s typically not dangerous, <b>if you have gall stones it can put you on the surgeon’s table for gallbladder removal operation</b>.
As you can imagine drinking large quantities of olive oil stresses the liver. And the mixture of olive oil and lemon juice tastes anything but good.
To add insult to the injury the liver flush is often not a very effective acne treatment. To see result most people need to repeat the procedure up to 20 times - and in this case one could argue that the results come from repeated fasting and clean diet than from the liver flush itself.
Luckily you don’t need to flush your liver to get clear. Your body can heal itself without any flushes or cleanses. This doesn’t have to be complicated. Eat a clean diet, exercise, practice healthy lifestyle habits, remain positive and do few detoxes (without any cleanses or flushes). That’s all. Your body then takes care of any toxins and congestion - not to mention your acne.
How you live your life every day is what determines the fate of your acne - not how often you flush your liver.
I often bash acne treatments that are ‘quick-fixes’. Meaning this pill, powder, cream, flush or whatever cures your acne and solves your health problems. Just like the duck in this cartoon does:
Still, there’s a way you can use these quick-fixes intelligently. And this posts explains how.
I just saw one woman at an acne.org forum saying hormonal balancing is the key to acne. Her doctor prescribed her bioidentical (is that an oxymoron or what) hormones to ‘balance’ her hormones.
This is part of my reply to her, which explains one of the problems with these quick-fixes. I’ll get to how to use them the smart way after this.
And by the way, the same principles in my reply applies to any and all so-called imbalances (such as blood sugar, inflammation) that lead to acne, and pretty much to every cause of acne.
So this helps even if your acne is not hormonal.
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I feel I have to stick my dirty fingers here.
I feel happy for you that this is helping you. And I really don’t mean to rain on your parade. Just want to give you heads up.
Taking artificial hormones won’t ‘balance’ your hormones. You are just plugging a leaky hole and temporarily fixing the problem.
Your hormones are never ‘unbalanced’. They are the way they are for a reason. The body regulates hormones and it’s always based on your ‘internal environment’. In other words state of health.
Just because a doctor tells you your hormones are unbalanced doesn’t mean anything. He’s just comparing them to some number the medical community cooked up and agreed on. Those number don’t reflect your unique situation and condition.
Given your internal environment the body regulates hormones in a way that’s best for the entire body. Your hormones are always in perfect balance. Granted that balance will not always give you the results you want.
By taking artificial hormones you upset the balance the body thinks is the best. So you UNbalance them. That may give you the result you want, but in the long term it’s probably bad for your health.
Anytime you stick your fingers in and mess with your body you make things worse (regarding your overall health).
The body regulates hormones based on the internal environment. You can affect that with the foods you eat and the way you live your life.
That’s the only way to ‘balance’ your hormones in a way that also gives you the results you want.
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So far Clear for Life is the only acne book in the market that shows you how to do that. Acne No More is also good for getting you clear. But it’s not so good for long term because it’s mostly based on fasting and that doesn’t keep you clear for long time. All the supplements you need to buy also makes it quite expensive.
Ok, that’s all fine and dandy.
But I bet my crystal ball tells me your goal is to get clear as soon as possible. Unfortunately it may take some time before your body has gained enough vitality to cure your acne.
That doesn’t gel with your goal very well, does it.
The trick is to combine these two approached.
Start rebuilding your health (fixing the internal environment) right now. That’s the only thing that’s going to keep you clear in the long term. At the same time try some quick-fixes that can get you clear quickly.
That way you can have your cake and eat it too.
You get clear quickly, well at least have a chance to, and get to keep your clear skin for life.
The reason I often bash quick-fixes is because they kill your motivation to make the real changes. If you already are clear then why would you change your diet and lifestyle?
Plus quick-fixes give you a bag full of excuses. Instead of kicking yourself on the arse and making the change you think ‘maybe this new pill or product can fix the problems’.
Your motivation to change drains away and you stay stuck.
But as long as you don’t let this happen and actually make the changes quick-fixes are ok.
Keep that in mind because quick-fixes have as much chance of giving you the permanent freedom you are looking for as a disfigured chimpanzee in a beauty contest.
It just doesn’t happen.
Strictly speaking, this is not the best for your overall health. Because most quick-fixes throw the body off balance. Some more and some less. So it’s probably going to take you longer to regain perfect health (and skin).
Still, you have a good chance to cure acne, or at least significantly reduce it, quickly.
And somehow I feel that’s worth it for you.
Some quick-fixes are better than others. Meaning they don’t throw your body off balance so much.
Here are some ’safe’ quick-fixes (in my opinion):
Topicals without any products (such as steaming).
Homemade topical treatments, topicals with only natural ingredients are good also, but homemade are better.
Supplements; this is a bit tricky because some supplements can create nutritional imbalances. I’d stay away from vitamins and other single nutrition supplements. Probiotics, enzymes, HCL and such are pretty safe.
Homeopathy
Laser and light treatments; this is a bit so-and-so. Although these don’t use chemicals (and as such are safe) they do cause free radical damage in the skin and that way can be harmful.
Here’s the blacklist of quick-fixes:
Topicals with chemicals.
Herbs; this includes Chinese medicine, Ayurveda and similar medicines. Herbs are nothing but mild form of drugs. They are inert substances and have no healing effect whatsoever. They only irritate the body and force the body into throwing the offending substances out.
Cleanses and flushes of any kind.
Drugs; antibiotics, Accutane and the entire gang.
Those are not exhaustive lists. Just something I had on top of my mind now.
I think Mr. X Acne Says is one of the best quick-fix solutions. Mr. X Acne Says is based on the idea that inflammation causes acne. I agree fully with that.
Mr. X Acne Says then offers a combined dietary and supplement based solution to reduce inflammation. The dietary changes are simple and easy to implement to anyone who is at least a bit health conscious. If you eat at McDonald’s every day it can be bit of a challenge.
The supplements cost you a bit, around $50 a month. But when you combine it with diet and lifestyle changes, you need the supplements only for 2 to 3 months.
I’m in touch with ‘Mr. X’ (this sounds like some blind dating program) regularly. He’s a good and reliable fellow. If the program doesn’t work for you he will give you a refund. And if, for any reason, you have problems just contact me and I’ll email him.
Of course I can’t promise Mr. X Acne solution gets you clear, but combined with lifestyle changes in Clear for Life it’s the best solution for getting clear quickly and permanently I can think of.
It tells me the next craze in the acne market will be…
Botox.
Dermatologists have noticed a positive side effect on the patients who have got Botox injections. Acne cleared in the areas Botox was injected. Apparently the results lasted for four months.
Doctors theorize that Botox works because it ‘relaxes’ facial muscles and skin ducts. ‘Relaxed’ ducts then won’t pump that much sebum. Less sebum, less bacteria and less acne.
First, Botox doesn’t ‘relax’ anything. It paralyzes. It kills. It’s a toxin. It’s even called Botulinum toxin. It’s from the same group of toxins that causes fatal food poisonings. So the relaxation is something of a more permanent kind.
Obviously when you injecting a potent poison into your skin is going to have an effect. If it doesn’t kill it paralyzes the facial muscles and the skin around the injected area. It’s not a big surprise that this messes up the delicate hormonal receptors in the skin.
When these receptors won’t work anymore the sebum producing cells won’t get the ‘produce more sebum’ messages anymore. So they won’t produce that much sebum anymore.
The toxin also causes free radical damage. Over time this drains the body’s antioxidant storages. And when you are low in antioxidants your skin becomes sensitive to sunlight, chemicals and other irritant and toxins.
Is Botox dangerous?
Besides the free radical damage is Botox dangerous?
First I have to point out that Botox has been used for 25 years. There have been total of 16 reported deaths and 180 people developed life-threatening conditions. As this article points out:
I don’t like to be alarmist. You have to put those cases in proportion. In 2005 3.8 million Botox treatments were performed in the US alone. And those 16 deaths happened between 1997 and 2006. So less than 2 deaths a year. So the change of developing a fatal reaction is less than one in a million.
But there’s something else you need to understand also. And very few people get this.
Just because you don’t develop visible symptoms to something doesn’t mean that substance is safe.
The toxin (Botox) is in your body and the body must get rid of it. Your body won’t allow toxins to stay in the body. So Botox enters your blood and lymph circulation. From there it goes to your liver and eventually thrown out.
It may not cause noticeable symptoms but it nevertheless adds to the burden the body has to carry.
Two more ideas: health accumulation and health degradation.
As you stress the body (with wrong diet and lifestyle and subjecting it to toxins and chemicals) bit by bit your health degrades. Over time your health slips and slips and until at one point you start to get symptoms (acne is one of them).
Though Botox may be safe in a sense that it won’t kill you or cause immediate symptoms it’s still one more blow to your health. And it makes it that much more difficult to rebuild your health and get the permanently clear skin you are looking for.
The only way out of that mess is to start building your health. With time and patience the body regains enough vitality that it can clear up your acne. But you don’t just get clear. Your skin starts to radiate health and youth. You look younger. You feel happier and more optimistic.
And doing this is not difficult. It takes little effort to get started, but within in two to three weeks you look and feel so much better you never want to go back.
So why would you get injected with a poison instead of living a life that makes you healthy, happy and clear for life?
Can you look into a mirror and ask yourself that question?
Because the only thing standing between you and lifetime of clear skin is staring back at you. And the lies (reasons) you keep telling yourself of why you can’t eat healthy foods and live a healthy life.
What’s your excuse?
Is that excuse more dear to you than clear skin? For many people it is.
If not, how long are you going to let it keep you from getting clear?