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March 4, 2023

Acne and Diet: What the Studies Show

Before treating anything as one of the acne causing foods, it helps to see what was tested. This article goes through what the NHS says causes acne, which foods have been tested in studies, what those studies found, and what is known about dates.

Causes of acne on the NHS page

According to the NHS acne page, acne can happen when hair follicles become blocked with excess oil and dead skin cells. Bacteria can then grow in the blocked follicles and cause inflammation and pus. The page names these causes:

  • changes in hormone levels, such as during puberty, periods, menopause and pregnancy
  • conditions such as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) and rosacea
  • taking certain medicines
  • products you use on your skin or hair that can make your skin greasy

Food is not on the list. Diet has still been studied, and the sections below cover glycemic load, dairy, chocolate, and fruit and vegetables.

Two reviews of the diet research

One summary is a 2022 systematic review in JAAD International by Meixiong and colleagues. Their search found 410 articles, and 34 met the inclusion criteria. They concluded that high glycemic index, increased glycemic load and carbohydrate intake "have a modest yet significant proacnegenic effect", in other words a small push towards acne. They called the dairy literature "mixed" and said the effect may depend on sex, ethnicity and cultural dietary habits. They also said further randomised trials are necessary.

Dall'Oglio and colleagues published a review covering 2009 to 2020. It included 53 articles: 11 interventional clinical trials and 42 observational studies. The authors listed high GI/GL food, dairy products, fat food and chocolate as acne-promoting factors. They listed fatty acids, fruit and vegetable intake as acne-protective. They added that the role of specific components of milk, dairy products and chocolate "remains an unsolved issue".

Low glycemic load diets

Here are two randomised trials that compared a low glycemic load diet with a control diet.

The first, published in 2007 by Smith and colleagues, recruited 43 male acne patients aged 15 to 25 for 12 weeks. One group ate a low-glycemic-load diet. The control diet emphasised carbohydrate-dense foods without reference to the glycemic index. Mean total lesion counts dropped by 23.5 in the low-glycemic-load group and by 12.0 in the control group. Weight also fell more in the low-glycemic-load group (2.9 kg), so the authors wrote that further studies are needed to separate the effect of weight loss from the effect of the diet.

The second, by Kwon and colleagues in 2012, randomly assigned 32 Korean patients with mild to moderate acne to a low glycaemic load diet or a control diet for 10 weeks. The low glycaemic group showed significant clinical improvement in both non-inflammatory and inflammatory lesions. Skin samples from that group also showed smaller sebaceous glands and less inflammation.

Not every analysis agrees. A Cochrane review of complementary therapies for acne combined 2 studies of low against high glycaemic load diets at 12 weeks (75 participants). It found no clear evidence of a difference in non-inflammatory lesion counts and rated that evidence low quality. Its conclusion was that there is "some low-quality evidence from single trials" that a low glycaemic load diet may reduce total skin lesions.

Dairy

Pooled dairy figures come from a 2018 meta-analysis by Juhl and colleagues of 14 observational studies covering 78,529 people aged 7 to 30. Compared with no intake, the odds ratio for acne was 1.25 for any dairy, 1.28 for any milk and 1.36 for yogurt. For cheese it was 1.22, with a confidence interval running from 1.00 to 1.50. The authors reported publication bias and said the results "should be interpreted with caution due to heterogeneity and bias across studies." Observational studies like these show an association. They don't show that milk causes acne.

Chocolate

A few trials have tested chocolate directly. In one, Caperton and colleagues (2014) ran a double-blind, placebo-controlled study in 14 men aged 18 to 35 with a history of acne. The men swallowed capsules of unsweetened 100 percent cocoa, hydrolysed gelatin powder, or a mix of the two. Thirteen completed the study. Mean total lesions were significantly higher on day 4 and on day 7 than at baseline. Lesions were assessed only up to day 7.

Fruit, vegetables and adult acne

A multicenter case-control study in 12 Italian cities compared 248 women aged 25 or older with newly diagnosed acne against 270 women with other conditions. A low weekly intake of fruits or vegetables was associated with acne (odds ratio 2.33), and so was low consumption of fresh fish (2.76). The authors noted that some associations may reflect consequences of established acne, and said these lifestyle factors should be assessed further in prospective studies.

What is known about dates and acne

A PubMed search in October 2026 for acne together with date fruit, date palm or Phoenix dactylifera returned two records. One is a rat study of date palm pollen extract in a polycystic ovary syndrome model. The other is the Italian case-control study above, which came up only because its abstract mentions an acne "onset date". Neither looked at eating dates. No study found in that search tested whether dates make acne better or worse.

Dates are high in sugar. The USDA FoodData Central record 168191 gives Medjool dates 66.5 g of total sugars per 100 g, and one pitted date weighs 24 g. Sugar content and glycemic index are different measures, though. A 2011 study of five date varieties in 13 healthy volunteers measured mean glycemic indices of 46.3 to 55.1, which the authors called low.

On portions, the NHS 5 A Day guide says a 30g portion of dried fruit, such as dates, counts as 1 of your 5 A Day. It says dried fruit should be eaten at mealtimes, not as a snack between meals, to reduce the impact on teeth.

Ajwa dates come from Madinah in Saudi Arabia and are small, roundish and near-black. Green Diamond lists them on its homepage (harga Kurma Ajwa Green diamond, Kurma Madinah in Malaysia) and on its Ajwa page (Kurma Madinah in Malaysia).

What the NHS advises for acne

The NHS self-care advice for acne is about the skin, not the plate. It suggests washing your skin twice a day with a gentle cleanser, removing make-up at the end of the day, and using non-comedogenic skincare and make-up, which means products that will not clog pores. It says not to pick or squeeze spots because this can cause scars, and not to scrub your skin. A pharmacist can advise on treatments you put on your skin, such as salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide.

See a GP if treating acne yourself isn't working, if you have lots of spots or they are deep, painful or causing scars, if there are signs of a skin infection, or if acne is affecting your mental health.

Anyone thinking about changing their diet for acne should know what the diet trials above tested: whole low glycemic load diets over 10 to 12 weeks, rather than cutting out one food.

For questions or orders, see About Iran Date Fruit or message us through the contact page.

This article is general information, not medical advice. If your acne is severe, scarring or not getting better, speak to a pharmacist, GP or dermatologist.

References

  1. NHS. Acne. nhs.uk
  2. Meixiong J, Ricco C, Vasavda C, Ho BK. Diet and acne: a systematic review. JAAD Int. 2022;7:95-112. PMID 35373155
  3. Dall'Oglio F, Nasca MR, Fiorentini F, Micali G. Diet and acne: review of the evidence from 2009 to 2020. Int J Dermatol. 2021;60(6):672-685. PMID 33462816
  4. Smith RN, Mann NJ, Braue A, Mäkeläinen H, Varigos GA. A low-glycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;86(1):107-15. PMID 17616769
  5. Kwon HH, Yoon JY, Hong JS, et al. Clinical and histological effect of a low glycaemic load diet in treatment of acne vulgaris in Korean patients: a randomized, controlled trial. Acta Derm Venereol. 2012;92(3):241-6. PMID 22678562
  6. Cao H, Yang G, Wang Y, et al. Complementary therapies for acne vulgaris. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015;1:CD009436. PMID 25597924
  7. Juhl CR, Bergholdt HKM, Miller IM, et al. Dairy intake and acne vulgaris: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 78,529 children, adolescents, and young adults. Nutrients. 2018;10(8):1049. PMID 30096883
  8. Caperton C, Block S, Viera M, Keri J, Berman B. Double-blind, placebo-controlled study assessing the effect of chocolate consumption in subjects with a history of acne vulgaris. J Clin Aesthet Dermatol. 2014;7(5):19-23. PMID 24847404
  9. Di Landro A, Cazzaniga S, Cusano F, et al. Adult female acne and associated risk factors: results of a multicenter case-control study in Italy. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2016;75(6):1134-1141.e1. PMID 27542588
  10. Abou-El-Naga AM, El-Halim Mansour HA, Farouk NI, et al. Date palm pollen extract improves fertility and pregnancy outcomes in letrozole-induced polycystic ovary syndrome rats. J Mol Histol. 2026;57(2):75. PMID 41680525
  11. Alkaabi JM, Al-Dabbagh B, Ahmad S, et al. Glycemic indices of five varieties of dates in healthy and diabetic subjects. Nutr J. 2011;10:59. PMID 21619670
  12. U.S. Department of Agriculture. FoodData Central, SR Legacy 168191: Dates, medjool. fdc.nal.usda.gov
  13. NHS. 5 A Day: what counts? nhs.uk