Mediterranean-Style Diet Linked to Lower Adult Acne, With Sex-Specific and Dairy-Specific Differences

Acne is usually filed under adolescence, but for about 1 in 10 adults in the U.K. it never really left. A new study from King's College London asks whether what those adults eat has anything to do with it, and the answer, so far, is a qualified yes.

The researchers drew on the UK Biobank, a large population health study, and analyzed data from 228,757 participants. Of those, 1,603 were identified as having current acne, based either on recent diagnoses recorded in their health data or on what participants reported themselves. The findings appear in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

The headline result concerns the Mediterranean-style diet, one rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats. Adults who followed it more closely were less likely to report acne, and the link was particularly clear in women. In men, the pattern ran the other way: diets lower in carbohydrates and higher in animal-based foods were associated with a greater likelihood of acne.

The study also looked at individual foods. Cooked vegetables, cheese and yogurt were associated with a lower likelihood of acne. Skim milk and milk-based desserts were associated with a higher one. That split matters to the authors. Lead author Bochen Li, a doctoral student at King's, said that from an epidemiological perspective dairy should not be treated as a single category when studying acne. Fermented products such as yogurt, and cheese in some analyses, behaved differently from skim milk and milk desserts.

The researchers are careful about the differences between women and men. Li described them as exploratory. They may be partly rooted in biology, including hormones; acne is more common in women, which already hints at a hormonal influence. But they may also reflect differences in eating habits, in how symptoms are reported, and in how often women and men use health care. Further studies, Li said, are needed to confirm the patterns. Both genetics and environment are thought to contribute to acne, and until now evidence on diet and adult acne has been limited.

Corresponding author Wendy Hall said the picture is not as simple as cutting out dairy or sugary foods. Adults with acne tended to have less healthy diets overall, she noted, with some evidence that the associations differ between men and women. She was explicit about the limits: the study cannot show that diet causes or prevents acne.

What it offers instead, Hall said, are clues about which dietary patterns deserve testing in clinical trials. The next stage, she suggested, would help determine whether a healthy diet that includes foods such as cheese and yogurt could ease the burden of a skin condition that can profoundly affect people's well-being. Until those trials are run, the findings stand as associations rather than advice.