Does diet and lifestyle have a part to play in the management of rosacea?

Rosacea is a skin condition caused by dilation of the blood vessels in the face. Aside from using make up to cover the skin what else can you do to help your self?

Look at your diet to provide clues! Certain foods and drinks will make the condition worse. Alcohol and caffeine can cause the skin to flare up so it's best to limit your intake of these. Spicy foods and citrus fruits release histamine and this causes inflammation so again limit these in your diet.

You may wish to try an elimination diet your self to see whether other food groups have an effect on your skin.

The chances are though that you may have taken antibiotics and steroids to help with this condition. These drugs upset the natural balance of the gut bacteria and result in dysbiosis. A 2008 Italian study on a group of rosacea sufferers found that a large amount had some thing called SIBO in their guts. This is small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Some also had Helicobacter Pylori present. When this was eradicated their condition improved. *

It is therefore important to restore the balance of good gut flora with probiotics and a largely anti-inflammatory diet.

A registered nutritional therapist can arrange a comprehensive stool test for you. This looks at the balance of gut flora, yeasts and parasites. Then they will give advice on a diet to restore the balance.

It is best to reduce or avoid sugar, increase the amount of green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables in your diet, along with plenty of oily fish, walnuts and pumpkin seeds.

Eating garlic, onions, asparagus, artichoke and chicory will help to feed the good bacteria.

The bacteria in your gut feed on fermented foods such as kimche, sauerkraut, natural yoghurt, kefir, kombucha, tempeh and natto.

An NT will also recommend a course of probiotics for you to take over a period of time.

Why not try this approach? It isn’t instantaneous, but over the course of a few months you should start to notice a change in your skin condition.

* Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth in Rosacea: clinical effectiveness of it's eradication. Clinical gastroenterology and hepatology: the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. A Parodi, S Paolino, A Greco and V Savarino.

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