"Do Vitamin B12 Supplements Cause Acne?"
Acne is a disease unique to humans. Why do humans get acne?
Well, think about the distribution of those greasy sebaceous glands---face, chest and back---
exactly the same structures that pose the greatest
obstruction during childbirth. So hey, maybe having a little
extra lubrication at those sites would help make the baby
more slippery for birth, conferring a selective advantage
for successful delivery. OK, but what triggers them
to become inflamed into zits later on? While in westernized societies, acne
is a nearly universal skin disease afflicting up to 95% of teens,
in some populations eating more traditional diets not even
single cases could be found. This suggests that perhaps
nutrition counseling should be a first-line therapy for individuals
with mild to moderate acne. It looks like it's the high glycemic
foods and dairy products. So we're talking sugar, soda,
refined junky carbs, white flour, breakfast cereal, and dairy products
like milk, cheese, yogurt, whey, as well as saturated and trans fats
concentrated in meat, dairy, junk, and fast food.
So for example, acne patients should be encouraged to discontinue
any whey protein supplements they might be taking.
The relationship between milk and acne severity may be explained
by the presence in dairy of normal reproductive sex steroid hormones
or the enhanced production of growth hormones such as IGF-1.
And if you re like, "Wait, I gave up dairy a month ago and still no change,"
It should be noted that changes in acne due to any dietary changes
are likely to take at least 10 to 12 weeks, so you have to stick to it.
Not surprisingly, acne patients were more than twice as likely
to have a non-vegan diet compared to controls,
but the difference did not reach statistical significance.
So maybe the vegans were eating a lot of vegan junk?
But what about this: "Vitamin B12 Induced Acnes"
Our fellow great ape herbivores like gorillas get all the B12 they need
practicing the eating of feces, but my preference would be
to take B12 supplements. And you don't have to worry
about getting too much because there are evidently no reports
of adverse effects associated with excess B12 intake,
but that's not true.
First described back in the 1950's, about 1 in 10 people erupt in acne
within days or even just within hours of getting an injection of vitamin B12,
which then disappears rapidly when you stop injecting them.
At the time, we had no idea what the mechanism might be,
a problem still unsolved even up until just to a few years ago.
But then we finally figured it out: Vitamin B12 modulates
the gene expression of the skin bacteria that cause acne.
They swabbed the skin of 10 people before and after being injected
with Vitamin B12. It turns out the level of B12 on your skin
is proportional to the level in your blood, and so after injection
the bacteria on your skin have to make less of their own B12,
and so the acne bacteria could concentrate instead on using
its cellular machinery to churn out more compounds to attack your face.
Without excess B12 on the skin, shown here in green,
the bacteria has to make most on its own at the expense of porphyrins,
which can trigger acne inflammation. When there's lots of B12 floating around,
the bacteria can not waste resources and focus instead on trying to pimple
you up. OK, so wait, what do you do? Those on plant-based diets have
to take supplemental B12. Yes, but we don't have to get injections.
Vitamin B12-related acne tends to occur only in dosages in excess of
5,000 to 10,000 micrograms a week, well in excess of the 50 micrograms
a day I recommend, or alternately my 2,000
single weekly dose. I mean the only time you'd be taking
between 5,000 to 10,000 a week is if you were treating B12 deficiency.
If you remember from my previous video, B12 deficiency is treated with
1,000 micrograms a day for a month or more,
and that could potentially trigger it, as noted in this vegan woman
who wasn't taking B12, developed B12 deficiency,
and had to be treated with such high doses her face erupted in acne.
So all the more reason not to fall B12 deficient in the first place.
But look, if worse comes to worst, even if you do get B12 injections,
the likelihood of it triggering acne may only be about 1 in 10.