There seems to be a lot of cautionary tales about what you should and what you should not eat when dealing with acne. Are these just 'old wives tales' or is there some truth in the matter. Whilst it is true is a very simplistic viewpoint to assume that we are what we eat it is not always so simple to say that acne is caused just because you are eating a certain food type or that it is making the condition worse. So many factors can come into play with an acne breakout, it could be part of the body's natural growth cycle when hormone levels change, stress can play an important part, an issue with the body's immune system etc.

Let us take chocolate as an example. Chocolate is now known to increase the feel good chemicals in the brain, the endorphins. Endorphins put you in a good mood and take the edge off of pain and importantly can help you dealing with stress. The less stress the better the immune system and perhaps less blemishes... as if we need an excuse to eat chocolate!

With that said, it would be perfectly natural for anyone that thinks that a certain food type is affecting their acne to stop consuming it and remove it from his or her diet. However if a proper course of treatment is being used to combat the condition it is unlikely that any food will be a deciding factor in the overall outcome.

Junk food? Just because there is grease on the plate doesn't mean there will more grease in your skin. Research has yet to find a correlation between the oil used in cooking 'greasy food' and the oil of the sebaceous glands. A healthy diet is of course an overall good choice for your general well-being but a burger and chips free diet does not automatically grant you a flawless complexion.

Some claim that iodides in food aggravate and perhaps actually cause acne in the first place. So following their dictum if anyone over indulges in food stuffs high in iodides like sushi, seaweed, and shellfish, then countries like Korea and Japan would have really, really serious levels of acne within their population but there is no research to say that they do.

Fish? Much attention has been placed on the benefits of including fish within a general diet and for good reason... it contains those good ol' omega-3 fatty acids. Salmon has a high level of the anti-inflammatory omega-3 and as such many people will tell you that eating salmon will help reduce acne and even prevent it. It is a good food choice for anybody but the farmed variety may contain PCBs and dioxins which by their very names don't even sound good, but more importantly both have been linked to health issues. To make matters worse even the wild variety contains mercury so whilst adding them to your plate is generally a good thing, it is not advisable to over do it.

What's the beef? We all have androgens within our body and these sometimes induces overproduction of oil in the oil glands which not what an acne suffer wants. A lot of cattle feed is pumped with androgens to increase their build so the question is: does eating beef and drinking milk aggravate acne. Well their seems to much debate about this as research looks into whether we get an androgen stimulation from the two. But it is likely that the androgens actually get 'cooked out' during the cooking process before it reaches the plate. Also these hormones have to contend with our digestive system as we have a different food breakdown process to that of a cow. The high levels of acidity within our gastric tract will most likely kill these hormones. I guess a good idea would be to ask a vegan if they have ever had acne, don't be surprised if they say yes.