Supplements to Fight Breakouts Fish Oil, Zinc, and More - Bellagena Med Spa of Bradenton

Supplements to Fight Breakouts: Fish Oil, Zinc, and More

Written by:

Julia Bifulco

Julia had the vision of creating a clinical skin care studio with the traditional spa atmosphere for many years. Julia is a Licensed Aesthetician, Licensed Electrologist, and Certified Laser Hair Removal Technician in the State of Florida.

Your skin is what you eat.

As much magic as we aestheticians can work from the outside, your cellular makeup—from your skeleton to your aorta to your epidermis—comes predominantly from you. What you eat and absorb through your gastrointestinal system gets processed into nutrients and pushed out to your cells. 

An insufficiency of certain nutrients, when combined with genetics, background, and environmental factors, can exacerbate or even cause breakouts. Fortunately, providing your body with the right supplements can also help fight and even prevent them, too.

Here’s everything you need to know about supplements and skincare: What causes breakouts, what supplements to take, what to avoid, and how they work. 

What causes breakouts?

As we covered in our previous blog about topical breakout treatments, breakouts are caused by an overproduction of sebum, sticky skin cells clogging pores, inflammation, or bacteria—or a combination of two or more of these issues.

And while these issues affect your skin’s surface, their causes can start much farther inside your body. Some factors, like age-related hormonal changes, are largely out of your control. But other variables, like the nutrients you consume, can regulate (or deregulate) your skin’s health.

How does diet affect breakouts?

Various aspects of your diet can cause or exacerbate breakouts. For instance, spikes in your blood sugar can cause your body to produce a hormone that produces excess sebum. And boom: breakout.

Likewise, highly processed foods—especially fast food and refined sugars—can cause inflammation, another acne trigger.

What supplements can fight breakouts?

While avoiding dietary breakout triggers is a great place to start, you can also be proactive by taking supplements that counteract these triggers. Two of your best, most effective breakout-fighting options are zinc and fish oil (omega-3s).

Other supplements that can help maintain healthy skin and lessen the risk of breakouts include Vitamins A, C, D, and E, as well as probiotics. 

How do zinc and fish oil fight breakouts?

Zinc actually helps to regulate the hormone fluctuations that can cause excess sebum. In people with low levels of zinc, the metabolism is much more prone to extreme variations—especially triggered by consuming sugar—and that triggers sebum-producing hormones. Zinc can mitigate these betabolic swings.

Fish oil contains Omega-3 fatty acids, which can reduce inflammation—ie the breakout trigger caused by processed foods. Without inflammation, pores have an easier time clearing away sebum and sweat without getting clogged.

Other supplements to fight breakouts.

Your skin is a complicated organ that requires many different types of nutrients to operate at its best. 

Vitamins: In addition to their basic roles in healthy skin operations, Vitamins A, C, D, and E can all reduce breakout-causing inflammation. Vitamin C specifically can help your immune system fight infection and bacteria, another cause of acne. Additionally, Vitamin B complex can help your body regulate hormones.

Probiotics: Keep in mind that, in addition to hormones and genetics, all of these factors are also affected by your microbiome, which exists on your skin as well as in your gut. Those healthy microbes in our digestive system dictate how well you break down and absorb certain types of food. Maintaining a healthy gut, with probiotics as needed, will help these supplements work their best.

The bottom line in fighting breakouts with supplements:

And as with all aspects of nutrition, supplements can’t do it all. It’s important to maintain a healthy, balanced diet of real, minimally processed foods, too. And don’t overdo it. Even the healthiest body can only process a limited amount of the supplements you give it. And in some cases, supplements (like Vitamin A) can be toxic if consumed in excess.

Additionally, we always recommend that you consult with a licensed aesthetician to get to the bottom of your acne. Treating yourself can only get you so far, and you may be missing certain causes that a skincare expert can help you manage much more efficiently.

Just give Bellagena a call. It’s what we’re here for.