I remember that while my cousin Angela and sister Tonya were
teenagers they never had acne. During their teenage years and in their
early twenties, they used birth control pills. However, after they started
having children, they both had severe cases of acne.
Not surprisingly,
they were baffled by this sudden onset of acne. I guessed that the
estrogen in their birth control pills had something to do with sparing
them from acne.
Diana Schwarzbein, M.D. and Nancy Deville expose the link between
estrogen and acne in their book The Schwarzbein Principle. To
explain, if a female is consuming too much sugar (or high
carbohydrates) her insulin levels rise along with androgen production.
(Recall the increased androgen activity leads to more oil secretion by
the pore, which can cause acne). The excess of androgen can block the
effectiveness of estrogen.
So, if you were on birth control pills containing estrogen, perhaps you
balanced the activity of the androgens with the extra estrogen from the
pills. Thus you did not have acne. But once you stop taking the birth
control pills, the estrogen and androgens hormones became
unbalanced.
To resolve this problem, you can go to the root of the
imbalance and moderate your consumption of sugars and
carbohydrates.
Medicine works by tricking our bodies and us. I am here to convince
you that we need to interpret the messages of our bodies, not ignore
them or try to hide them.
As I hope you’ve seen from the examples
above, often times the medicine can deliver more damage than
benefits. I am here to blame no one of wrongdoing; I just want to
encourage everyone to stop neglecting and abandoning bodily wisdom.
Your body is intelligent and it is designed to help you be a healthy and
capable being.
Give it the nutrients, rest, diversion and environment
that it needs and the body will reward you with vitality.
Now, in the chapters to come, I will discuss many of the questions you
will need to ask yourself so that you can begin interpreting your own
acne messages and give yourself the life you deserve. Only you can
make you healthy and happy. Read on my friend.