Teen beats acne with good food
Pimples are inconvenient at any time, but Liv Groves-Kruk’s were so painful, they led her on a life-changing journey, writes Serena Solomon.
When deep, inflamed cystic acne began forming on Liv Groves-Kruk’s face as she was struggling with typical teenage angst, her confidence went from a 10 out of 10 to zero. The pimples were so painful she couldn’t sleep on whatever side of her face had blazing red mounds. She wouldn’t let herself be seen under certain light, or from specific angles that she thought emphasised her skin condition.
‘‘I was so embarrassed . . . I would wear a scarf and a hat,’’ said Groves-Kruk, who lives in Upper Hutt, north of Wellington.
That was Groves-Kruk at 16.
Now, at 19, she has clear skin and is promoting her cookbook, Simply Nourishing, which details the diet she used to help rid her face of those painful cysts. The recipes are void of gluten, sugar, soy and grains, and processed oils such as canola, while focusing on fruit, vegetables, proteins, and healthy fats such as coconut oil.
The vision for the book is the result of her cooking experiments during the Covid-19 lockdown last year, when Groves-Kruk began documenting her creations on social media.
‘‘I wanted to just start fresh and try something new,’’ said GrovesKruk, of her diet and journey to healing cystic acne that took two years.
She describes her diet and the cookbook as paleo with a touch of dairy. Paleo is an eating philosophy that focuses on the whole foods eaten by early humans, rather than the gluten-heavy and processed foods of the modern Western diet, a major culprit of acne.
Regular acne is described as a series of small whiteheads and blackheads. About 80 per cent of people will develop some form of acne between 11 and 30 years of age, according to Health Navigator New Zealand.
Cystic acne takes this to another level, and only impacts about two in every 1000 people who have regular acne. The cysts are caused when glands around hair follicles produce too much oil, clogging pores and producing a cyst deep in the skin.
Diet, stress, hormones, and genetics can play a role in the condition that is often treated with antibiotics or isotretinoin, the active ingredient in products such as Accutane. If the patient is female, the contraceptive pill can also be prescribed to rein in hormones.
It is widely accepted that diet is a major cause of acne in the modern world, according to Dr Paul Nolan from Ponsonby Cosmetic Medical Clinic.
However, ‘‘The science can be tricky,’’ he said, pointing to the cost and difficulty of diet research that can reach conflicting conclusions.
He highlighted two studies – one done in Melbourne in 2007; another in France in 2014 – that looked at the impact on skin when high glycaemic foods such as sugar, white bread and white rice are avoided. These confirmed a reduction in the number of pimples experienced by participants who avoided those foods. The paleo diet avoids many high glycaemic foods.
‘‘I’m not so much advocating what diet people eat. I’m advocating what foods they should avoid,’’ Nolan said, cautioning that not all acne will respond to a change in diet.
The recipes in Simply Nourishing include butter chicken that uses healthy oils such as coconut oil, swaps out dairy for coconut cream and subs regular rice for cauliflower rice.
There are zucchini boats covered in a mince sauce, and tortillas made with just four ingredients – ku¯ mara, almond or coconut flour, coconut oil, and salt. Treats are on the table, too. Examples include banana pancakes made with three ingredients, and a rather involved but decadent recipe for raw chocolate caramel slice.
It’s a far cry from the diet Groves-Kruk was eating in her early teenage years when she played a lot of sport such as netball, touch football and crosscountry running.
‘‘I would get McDonald’s every night for dinner,’’ she said. ‘‘I was happy. . . and I didn’t have a care in the world.’’
That started to change in year 9, when Groves-Kruk became increasingly anxious. She was preoccupied with hanging with the ‘‘cool kids’’ at school. There was also more pressure coming from the classroom, assignments and exams. In year 11, she switched her diet to vegan. It was partly because of her care for the environment and animals, partly because others were doing it, and partly because she had read on the internet that dairy and meat can cause pimples.
At the time her skin wasn’t bad but, like most teenagers, she saw zits as the enemy and would do anything to avoid them. But veganism left her so undernourished that she stopped having her period for a few months. It’s also when the cystic acne began appearing.
‘‘I think everyone’s body is different and everyone does what works for them,’’ said GrovesKruk. ‘‘[Veganism] just didn’t work for me.’’ She went to a doctor who prescribed a birth control pill. It seemed to work, but a few weeks later the cystic acne returned with a vengeance. A rash around her eyes and mouth also appeared.
The doctor quickly took Groves-Kruk off the pill and prescribed antibiotics. The teen was also encouraged to consider medication for her anxiety.
However, she knew this wasn’t the long-term fix she wanted.
Groves-Kruk’s mum knew a primal food coach called Irma Jager, who came into the paleo lifestyle after suffering a stroke at 42. Jager is quick to point out that she isn’t a doctor or a nutritionist and helping clients is often a unique process of trial and error.
‘‘I see this especially in young adults,’’ Jager said, of other clients who have cystic acne. ‘‘I look at their skin and I can see what is going on with inflammation.’’
The inflammation Jager is referring to isn’t the blazing cysts but the inflammation in the body that could be causing the cysts. Inflammation is the body’s natural response to deal with issues such as tissue damage, bruises or bad bacteria.
Bad or chronic inflammation occurs when this response goes on for too long or goes into overdrive. It can lead to serious consequences such as heart disease, arthritis or Crohn’s disease.
Jager started Groves-Kruk on a two-week experiment avoiding inflammatory foods such as grains, sugar, highly processed vegetable oils, and dairy. Jager also instructed Groves-Kruk to reintroduce quality meat and animal fats (think organic with no added hormones), which are considered good fats by paleo followers. Homemade fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, which are a natural probiotic, were also a focus.
The first two weeks of Groves-Kruk’s new lifestyle were tough. Her skin seemed to get worse.
Then something clicked. The rash and the cysts began clearing up. Her energy levels increased, giving her more motivation to stick with the experiment.
It’s been a year since Groves-Kruk started the experiment. The rash around her mouth and eyes never came back. She gets the occasional pimple, but there is no sign of the cystic acne. She has relaxed her diet a little from strict paleo to occasionally eating dairy and even a rare bit of processed food.
‘‘Paleo works for me but it doesn’t mean it will work for everyone,’’ she said. ‘‘I just hope people explore more.’’