Eliminating Adult Acne for Good: Regain your self-esteem and confidence without wasting money on ineffective and harmful products.

By Leigh Brandon

Are you fed up with products that don't work? Are you ready to take control of your acne, once and for all? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to

regain your confidence and self-esteem?

If you've tried everything to overcome your acne and nothing has worked, it's most likely because you haven't addressed the underlyi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Conscious Dreams Publishing
• Release date: Nov 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915522511

Leigh Brandon

Leigh Brandon, the Founder of BodyCHEK has a mission to help as many people as possible to reach their health and performance potential, so they can live more productive, fulfilling and happier lives. He combines a number of professions to provide a truly comprehensive approach to helping his clients and athletes. Leigh has specialised in injury rehabilitation, wellness and sports conditioning since 1996. In addition to his skills as a practitioner, he is an author of four fitness books and two e-books, an international presenter and a member of the C.H.E.K Institute Faculty. Leigh also produced The Tennis Conditioning Series courses Levels 1, 2 & 3 for the CHEK Institute and teaches and lectures all over the world. Leigh has helped many people overcome back, neck, shoulder and knee pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, achieve their ideal weight and has helped athletes both amateur and professional improve performance, win medals and eliminate recurring injuries. Leigh’s clients include British and European champions and record holders and Olympic athletes. Leigh’s approach has enabled him to help clients with the most difficult conditions to achieve success where other modalities have previously failed. His experience has shown that the conventional approach to health, disease, exercise and nutrition don’t sufficiently satisfy the needs of the general population or professional athletes. Leigh is passionate to help people achieve their goals using a holistic approach over the long term and wishes to educate the people about ‘the truth’ to achieving health, vitality and optimal performance.

Book preview

PART I

FACT-CHECKING ACNE

THE GOOD, THE BAD

AND THE UGLY

‘There is no evidence that diet plays a role in acne.’¹

In this chapter, I outline what is good, bad and ugly about the current medical approach to acne.

The Current Medical Acne Paradigm

If you ask most medical doctors, they will tell you that acne is formed by a combination of the following factors:

excess androgens (male hormones)

excess sebum secreted from sebaceous glands due to excess androgens

excess sebum secreted to moisturise dry skin

blockage of the pores around hair follicles due to excess sebum

build-up of dead skin in hair follicles causes blockages and a further increase in sebum production to clear the blockages

the bacteria Cutibacterium acnes (formerly known as Propionibacterium acnes), which lives in the pores, begin to feed and flourish on the blocked sebum and dead skin

inflammation due to bacterial infection

DEFINITION:

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Sebum is the fatty lubricant matter secreted by sebaceous glands of the skin.

Sebaceous glands are any of the small sacculated glands lodged in the substance of the derma, usually opening into the hair follicles and secreting an oily or greasy material composed in great part of fat, which softens and lubricates the hair and skin.

The problems are not so much the increase in androgens, blocked pores or the bacteria building up on the dead skin but what is causing the increase in androgens, blocked pores, infections and inflammation.

Not addressing the underlying cause is why skin creams and cleansers do not work for most people in the long run. They merely mask the symptoms if you’re lucky. You might be able to keep clearing the skin, but the underlying cause is still there.

Doctors sometimes give women the contraceptive pill to balance hormones, but what is causing the hormones to be out of balance in the first place?

Unless these answers are found and dealt with, the problem (acne) will bubble up under the surface and rear its head whenever it likes. Acne is not caused by a deficiency in cleansing creams, antibiotics or a lack of synthetic hormones.

According to Dr William Kellas and Dr Andrea Dworkin, in their book, Thriving in a Toxic World, acne can be caused by too much cadmium, mercury, sugar, microorganisms or allergies, and I will tackle each of these subjects throughout the book.

Research², ³, ⁴, ⁵, ⁶, ⁷, ⁸, ⁹, ¹⁰ suggests there is a link between an increase in the hormone insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and acne. Research suggests these increased hormone levels can cause acne by:

increasing sebum production,

increasing the generation of skin cells and

dead skin cells sticking together.

The hypothesis suggests that a faster generation of skin cells causes more dead skin cells to be pushed through the skin’s pores. When dead skin cells stick together, they are pushed through the skin’s pores in large quantities rather than one skin cell at a time. Then, you have a lot of sticky sebum, which is likely to lead to blocked pores and breakouts.

One thing I must also make clear is that your skin is your largest organ, and it is an organ of detoxification. Dr Ben Johnson of Osmosis Beauty is unconvinced acne is caused by bacterial infections (as described by the medical establishment) and believes acne is caused by the skin purging toxins from the body.¹¹

Your skin is a good barometer of how well you are doing on the inside. In my view, acne is a condition caused by an imbalance of one or more of the body’s systems. I will teach you how to balance your body’s systems, thereby improving your skin. This is exactly how my clients and I did it and how we maintain it.

I opened this chapter with a quotation from the UK’s National Health Service, stating, ‘There is no evidence that diet plays a role in acne’—is it true there is no evidence that diet plays a role in acne? Find out in Chapter 2!

The Effects of Traditional Medical Acne Treatments

In this section, I show you the common medical approaches to acne, their positive and negative effects and why they are still recommended. In other words, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

There are four main medical approaches that tend to be used for acne:

Antibiotics

Combined contraceptives for females

Other hormone treatments

Topical creams and cleansers

Antibiotics

Antibiotics used for acne include:

erythromycin

tetracycline

doxycycline

minocycline

Whilst antibiotics can be effective in the short term, long-term use can be detrimental to your overall health. If the antibiotics are effective, you must stop taking them long term because it is not safe to continue long-term so; in almost all cases, the acne will just bounce back once they are stopped.

If antibiotics are used long-term (as I did), as well as not always being effective, they often make the acne worse, and they can cause antibiotic resistance and damage to the gut microbiome. Antibiotic resistance can cost you your life if antibiotics don’t work when you need them to keep you alive after you are in a serious accident or need surgery, for instance.

As well as killing the Cutibacterium acnes, antibiotics also kill the commensal (beneficial) bacteria that arguably play the most important role in our overall health. Almost all disease is linked with dysbiosis (imbalanced bacteria).

Antibiotics leave the door wide open to pathogenic bacteria and fungi, which may also cause acne and many other diseases. Studies have shown those who use topical and oral antibiotics are three times as likely to show an increase of bacteria in the throat and tonsils compared with non-users.¹²

Long-term use of antibiotics in acne treatment is also associated with an increase in upper respiratory infections and skin bacteria and has been shown to affect blood sugar levels, as well.¹³

We need to be aware of the potential consequences when we use antibiotics and carefully weigh the risks and benefits.

Combined Contraceptives

Contraceptive pills are given to women to reduce the level or effect of androgens in the body. Though they tend to be effective in reducing acne whilst in use, the acne tends to worsen when the contraceptive is stopped.

Taken over the long term, contraceptives have been linked with¹⁴

blood clots:

deep vein thrombosis

pulmonary embolus

stroke

heart attack

high blood pressure

breast, cervical, endometrial, ovarian, bowel and liver cancers

osteoporosis

gallbladder disease

zinc deficiency

Other Hormone Treatments

Isotretinoin/Accutane:

Isotretinoin (formerly known as Accutane) is only given for severe acne when all other medical avenues have been tried. Sadly, it is used quite regularly as the other treatments are often ineffective long term.

Isotretinoin works by unclogging pores, reducing the stickiness of keratinocytes inside the follicle, slowing down sebum production and shrinking sebaceous glands.

This can be effective, but at what cost?

Side Effects:¹⁵

Your skin may become very dry and sensitive to sunlight during treatment. Using lip balm and moisturisers will help.

It’s very important not to become pregnant while using isotretinoin capsules and for at least one month after stopping. This is because isotretinoin can harm an unborn baby.

If you become depressed or think about harming yourself while taking isotretinoin, stop taking the medicine and tell your doctor straight away.

Your skin may become more sensitive to sunlight.

You may experience dry eyes.

You may experience a dry throat.

You may experience a dry nose and nosebleeds.

You may suffer from headaches and general aches and pains.

You may experience anxiety, aggression, violence, changes in mood or suicidal thoughts. These can be signs of depression or other mental health problems.

You may feel severe pain in your stomach with or without diarrhoea and feeling or being sick (nausea or vomiting). These can be signs of a serious problem called pancreatitis.

You may have bloody diarrhoea. This may be a sign of gastrointestinal bleeding.

You may have a serious skin rash that peels or has blisters. The skin rash may come with eye infections, ulcers, fever or headaches.

You may find it difficult to move your arms or legs, have painful, swollen or bruised areas of the body or dark pee. These can be signs of muscle weakness.

Your skin or the whites of your eyes might turn yellow; you might have difficulty peeing or feel very tired. These are signs of liver or kidney problems.

You may have a bad headache that doesn’t go away and makes you feel sick or be sick.

There may be sudden changes in eyesight, including not seeing as well at night.

Isotretinoin capsules can sometimes cause depression or make it worse and can even make some people feel suicidal.

Spironolactone:

Spironolactone is typically prescribed for high blood pressure, heart failure and swelling, but it is also used to reduce acne symptoms in women. It works by slowing the production of androgens (aldosterone).

Common side effects of spironolactone for girls and women can include:¹⁶

breast tenderness and/or breast enlargement

painful and/or irregular periods, as well as vaginal bleeding after menopause

hair loss

photosensitivity (sensitivity to UV rays from the sun and other light sources)

nausea and vomiting

drowsiness

Co-cyprindiol:

Co-cyprindiol is another hormone treatment prescribed to women for severe acne that doesn’t respond to antibiotics. It helps to reduce the production of sebum.

Side effects of co-cyprindiol include:¹⁷

bleeding and spotting between periods

headaches

sore breasts

mood changes

low libido

weight gain or weight loss

blood clots

breast cancer

Again, co-cyprindiol does not address the ‘why’ of hormone imbalances; it only attempts to mask the symptoms.

Topical treatments:

Benzoyl Peroxide:

Benzoyl peroxide works as an antiseptic to reduce the amount of bacteria on the surface of the skin.

It also helps reduce the number of whiteheads and blackheads and has an anti-inflammatory effect. Benzoyl peroxide is advertised as a six-week treatment. Common side effects of benzoyl peroxide are:¹⁸

dry and tense skin

a burning, itching or stinging sensation

some redness and peeling of the skin

permanent staining when it comes into contact with