If you’ve been trying, successfully or unsuccessfully, to treat your skin for acne and make it clear again, then you know there is almost never just one single cause that goes into this prevalent yet somewhat complicated skin condition.

Often times there are hormonal issues that are behind acne, sometimes it’s hygienic issues and skin care routines, but I’ve found that mostly just can aggravate it or make it a little better but is not usually the root cause, and then of course there are stress and anxiety factors as well. What it really all boils down to though, in it’s essence, is some sort of hormonal imbalance issue.

Hormones can be thrown into imbalance by many, many things. And not only that, these causes can vary from person to person and from tolerance level to tolerance level. Everyone has their own “trigger” for acne, so it really must be treated as individiually as it is diagnosed in the treatment program that is chosen. That being said, there has been some buzz that taking vitamin D supplements has helped some people’s skin clear up.

Vitamin D is actually a vitamin that can be found in a lot of dairy products such as eggs and fortified milk, but it can also be found in cod liver oil and certain types of fish. You can take a Vitamin D supplement, however, numerous studies point to the fact that sunlight is the best source of this vitamin.

This is because your body best synthesizes the vitamin from the sun, and uses it most efficiently when it is garnered this way, rather than taken in oral form. This is not to say that Vitamin D supplements are useless, but you do process this nutrient much more effectively when you get it from sunlight. There has been evidence that Vitamin D plays an important role in your immunity as well as in protection against cancer because it helps prevent cells from turning into cancerous cells.

Some tips you may want to adhere to in order to maximize your natural sun-gotten vitamin D are as follows. Wear sleeveless shirts and shorts, this way you get as much sun exposure on as much of your body as possible. Try to limit your time in the intense sun to no more than fifteen minutes fully exposed and NEVER get burnt. After being exposed to the sun’s ray’s, try not to shower for several hours afterward.

The reason for this is that your skin continues to process and absorb and actually “make” vitamin D on it’s surface after interacting with UV light several hours after you bathe in the sun. For this reason, not bathing or showering for several hours afterward helps your body to maintain more of the good stuff that’s left on the surface of your skin and process and absorb it.

Not only are omega 3′s protective for the heart because of their ability to help reduce harmful cholesterols and other fats from clogging the blood stream and reaching the veins and other parts of the circulatory system and causing havoc, but they also are known to help promote concentration, brain function – and yes, to help maintain a youthful, supple appearance in the skin.

Why? Well, because fish oils are protective of skin cells as well. Let me clarify, omega 3′s are helpful in protecting the skin, they don’t just have to consumed via fish products, but there are also various nuts, seeds, grains and veggies and even fruits that can help supply your diet with these much needed healthy fats.

I think you’ll find that consuming these fats in abundance will help your skin stay fresh looking, and amazingly moisturized and glowing if you make sure you also get lots of other good stuff in your diet. It’s not something you can take and then eat anything you want, but when you take this supplement with a balanced diet, I think you’ll find that it helps your overall health in many ways.

Not only do I feel that taking one fish oil a day helps my skin look better, but I also feel that it helps me to focus and have a better grip on my mental functions – as they say, fish is brain food, and it very well may be because of the omega 3′s, which help stabilize the blood sugar, and therefore help you not get that airheaded hungry feeling that so many of us do when our blood sugar dips – and guess what, an even keel blood sugar is also great for the skin. I think you can see what I’m getting at here – omega 3′s are a smart addition to your diet

So, I wondered, has anyone out there had true success, and not had any negative side effective by dosing up on B vitamins to help treat their acne? Of course, there would be a lot of concern if B vitamins were not water soluble, since they could quickly build up to toxic levels in the body, however, most B vitamins, including B5, are water soluble, which means you pass them out of your body when you urinate on a daily basis, so there is no danger of toxicity, unless you are taking such high levels that the body cannot get rid of it quickly enough.

Vitamin B 5 also goes by the name pantothenic acid. You see this ingredient in a lot of hair skin and nails vitamins, and in a lot of natural acne treatments since it is therapeutic for the skin, however, there is some concern over using primarily just higher doses of the vitamin to help treat acne since there are some side effects reported anecdotally such as lethargy.

I have a problem with extremely high dosing of any vitamin, and that is what some of these B5 acne treatments want you to do. Any high dosage of any vitamin or mineral should be treated with EXTREME caution, as any vitamin or mineral, or any other one pronged treatment for that matter, can become toxic to a person. Even the most healthy of vitamins, like vitamin C, can be taken too much. You can get mouth sores and overly acidic from taking that, and that is one of the most harmless vitamins out there.

B vitamins assist in the metabolization and processing of fats and carbohydrates in the body. As you know, B12 is one of the B vitamins that is used to infuse energy into the body by giving you excellent bursts of energy. The interesting part of the B vitamin theory is that it somehow traces acne back to the storage of fat in cells or something of that nature.

To be honest, I didn’t research it much because I happen to disagree with mega dosing like this. I think vitamin B is an excellent acne supplement, but only as a small dose, nothing huge or megadosing like some people suggest. I think there are better ways to treat acne, but that is just my personal opinion. Anyone who disagrees or has a different side to the story, please feel free to comment here – that’s what this site is all about.

Why did I start taking alpha lipoic acid in the first place?  Well, I started off dosing myself at 100 mg of this supplement per day, because I read about it in a book by Dr. Perricone, who has written several books on aging skin and keeping healthy skin, as well as helping to keep acne at bay.  He also has several high end pharmaceutical grade skin care products that are very expensive in my opinion, but they are very high quality and they do work from what I’ve used thus far from his line, but I’ve only used the Vitamin C ester cream and the liquid, and I also used the DMAE product.

He advocates taking alpha lipoic acid orally every day.  This supplement plays several roles in the body, but one of the most important ones is to help convert sugar into energy (glucose into energy).  This is the reason I increased my dosage and now take it with every meal actually, I found that it is an excellent blood sugar regulator, and allows me to stave off my appetite, function normally without getting all light headed from low blood sugar, and helps me to avoid skyrocketing blood sugar after a high carb meal.  Guess what, regulating your blood sugar is GREAT for your skin.

It helps stabilize your hormones, and reduce inflammation, it’s all related, so you’re not only regulating your blood sugar and converting it into energy more easily, you’re also getting a great skin benefit, and I’ve already noticed a difference in my skin since increasing my dosage and controlling my blood sugar.  It also may help with removing toxic free radicals from the body since it’s an antioxidant, and may have some protective properties against degenerative diseases like stroke, heart disease, and cancers.  Look into it, it’s a pretty cheap supplement and so far I’ve had a great experience with it.

Another warning was not to use those dubious blackhead removal strips like the Biore strips, and rip out blackheads, after you’ve been using Vitamin A based products since things get absorbed more easily for up to a week after treatment, and the skin layer may come completely off after using Vitamin A products instead of coming off where it should, which is just the filled pores.

Just because something it topically used, it doesn’t mean it does not get into our blood streams and into our systems.  Remember the high school track student who kept applying lidocaine based products such as Ben Gay and Icy Hot to her legs because they were sore?  She ended up dying from an overdose of lidocaine.  She put so much product on that she ended up going into cardiac arrest.  The findings were that she most likely also died because of a reaction between the lidocaine and some sort of aspirin based products she may have been taking.

Salicylic acid, which is one of my favorite topical acne treatment products, thankfully is not on a list of common products that may be overused.  Of course, this doesn’t mean to lather it on several times a day either, it’s not good to do that with any product, but it seems like it is mild enough that it probably would not cause any sort of internal reaction if it was overused.  Again, don’t put too much on just because of that though, because you just never know.  Also you will irritate and dry out your skin anyways if you over apply any type of topical acne treatment. 

One thing I absolutely love, which also usually happens to be in acne friendly formulas for a moisturizer, is any product with pure, natural vitamin C ester.  This is one of the best skin brighteners in my opinion.  If I ever stop using it for a few days, I notice that my complexion does get duller, so I try to use my vitamin C serum every night, and sometimes I even put a little on in the morning underneath my normal cream moisturizer, I just make sure i let the serum dry completely before I put on the moisturizer. 

Vitamin C serums are  my favorite.  For some reason I just have better luck with this vitamin in a serum.  It may be that a serum formula allows the product to absorb better into the skin, or perhaps my favorite formula just happens to have other great ingredients in it and also happens to be of a very high quality. 

Some people may be sensitive to vitamin C topically, but that’s usually rare, and it’s usually only with people who are extremely sensitive to all sorts of products.  Vitamin C is calming for most skin types.  It helps topically reduce inflammation, and it also helps to naturally slough off the dead skin cells on the top of the skin that make for a duller complexion, which is, I believe, the reason that it works so ideally as a skin clarifier and brightener. 

Vitamin C is a great antioxidant, and it is one that needs to be replenished on a daily basis.  We all would like to say we eat our daily fruits and veggies that would give us more than enough vitamin C every day, but many times this isn’t true, so a supplement that is well absorbed into the body is a good alternative, although of course, no pill is ever as good as the whole food istelf, but in this world today we need supplements because we can’t always ensure we get adequate amounts of each nutrient daily.

Vitamin C is one that we can take every day, and it will not result in a toxic buildup in the fat cells, like the ones that do not get flushed from the system every day.  I take a supplement called Ester-C because I personally believe that after all the reading I’ve done on Vitamin C and it’s health benefits, that this form of vitamin C is the most well absorbed and utilized form of the vitamin available. 

Another form is ascorbic acid, and it’s been hotly debated whether this form or the ester form of vitamin C has the same antioxidant capabilities as the other, so that’s really a matter of choice and judgement to the person taking the supplement – of course after doing all their own homework and drawing their most logical and comfortable conclusion. 

We all know that antioxidants are great for a variety of reasons for the health of our bodies, and that it’s also great for our skin as it is used in some of the top anti acne supplements like Acnezine, which is essentially an antioxidant based acne formula, but adding vitamin C every day to your regimen is something that not only can help ensure a long, healthy and glowing life for your skin, but can also help prevent cancer, illness and other diseases in conjunction with an otherwise healthy lifestyle.

One of the common denominators in most of his literature is how you should take a good vitamin C ester supplement for good skin, pretty much no matter what your skin care goals are, ie aging prevention, acne treatment, rosacea or acne rosacea treatment and other skin care problems.  I have also read in many other places that vitamin C is a vital component to maintaining healthy skin, and have even seen a visible improvement in the tone and texture of my skin since I began taking my vitamin C supplement.

Not only that though, because I believe that good nutrition and vitamins cannot all be obtained through a supplement or pill, I’ve made sure to include high vitamin C and high antioxidant foods in my daily diet.  Examples of this are lemon juice in my water every day, oranges and other citrus fruits a couple days a week, and then other foods naturally high in antioxidants besides vitamin C, so that I can be sure I’m getting a well rounded diet of high power foods that will help fix my complexion problems and make my skin more luminous. 

Vitamin C is shown to be a very powerful antioxidant, and has incredible restorative powers to the health of the cells, including skin cells, which can benefit anyone, no matter what their skin type.  Apparently, there are some vitamin C supplements that are made so that they will not upset the stomach, so those of you who avoid this vitamin supplement because of that should be able to take that type of version without any stomach issues because of the acidity. 

I already believe this because I’ve said numerous times in this blog that I believe drinking lemon juice in my water has immensely helped my skin, and may have even made me a bit healthier and less likely to get sick.  Vitamin C is a great antioxidant vitamin, and can be found in citrus fruits in abundance.  Fruits like oranges, tangerines, lemons and limes contain the nutrient, and also taste good, which is a bonus.

It’s also believed that juice from lemons helps with inflammation, which also may explain its benefits to the skin.  The key benefits of vitamin C may be great as an anti aging weapon, researchers are saying, because of its ability to fight free radicals, which are pivotal in breaking down collagen and leading to less skin elasticity and a breakdown of the skin’s natural defenses. 

Since it boosts natural defenses and may also reduce inflammation it may also be ideal to incorporate as an anti acne skin vitamin as well, by eating more citrus, especially lemons since they are lower in sugar than the sweeter citrus fruits. 

Also, new evidence is surfacing that vitamin C may also protect against sun damage, and the damaging UV rays that lead to premature aging, sun damage, freckles, age spots, and an uneven color to the complexion.  A whole new reason to eat your citrus fruit!  One of my favorites currently is the tangelo, which is an orange hybrid which is deliciously juicy and flavorful.   

Vitamin C has also been thought to be beneficial not only when consumed orally, but also when applied topically to the skin, as you will see many anti aging and skin-evening creams out there touting vitamin C as the main ingredient on the label.  Many skin care specialists say vitamin C applied topically is great for skin clarity and evening of the skin tone. 

It is essentially a potent antioxidant formula which helps to clear the skin by attacking free radicals which cause inflammation in the skin, among a host of other bad things that it does to the skin, including accelerated aging and wrinkle formation, aggravating acne and acne rosacea, and causing a generally bad complexion with little glow and bad tone. 

I had never really heard of using antioxidant therapy as a natural acne remedy, and this intrigued me, especially since antioxidants are touted as having a multitude of additional benefits besides just skin care, including heart and organ health, preventing diseases such as cancer and nerve related diseases, and many, many other health benefits too numerous to mention.  I read again about how high priced anti oxidant drinks such as Xango, which containg the potent juice of the mangosteen fruits, and other high antioxidant fruits such as noni juice and acai berry had shown promise in helping to clear acne.

I read several different places that antioxidant rich drinks and supplements, while they could not be solidly proven to help fight disease, did show that people with varying degrees of acne benefitted from them, and this cemented the belief that antioxidants in potent supplement form could definitely be of benefit.  For a review of the product we reviewed on this site that contains high antioxidant counts as a means to fight acne, see Acnezine review. 

If you’d like to read more about juices that contain high antioxidant counts, try mangosteen, acai and noni as a start.  Also, broccoli, tomatoes and several other foods rich in antioxidants can benefit the acne sufferer, so it is important to keep a lot of fruits and veggies in your fridge at all times.  Just another example of why we “are what we eat”.