I don’t know about you, but it’s almost impossible for me to even imagine trying to jumpstart myself every morning without being able to grab a cup of coffee. This made me wonder, “Does Coffee Cause Acne?”.
And I’m not alone.
Coffee is easily one of the most popular beverages on the planet. In fact, hundreds of millions of people brew up a cup of coffee or grab one from their favorite café every single day.
Unfortunately, as tasty – and as effective – as coffee is, there are quite a few studies that show coffee has a close link to acne. And that’s bad news for anyone dealing with blemishes that aren’t exactly a morning person!
Want to learn how coffee is linked to acne, and how to avoid getting more acne without sacrificing your daily coffee? Pay close attention to the inside information below.
Does Coffee Cause Acne?
We’d love nothing more is and to give you a straight answer to the question “does coffee cause acne?”. However, the truth of the matter is that coffee is such a complex beverage that it’s impossible to really pin things down.
A lot of different studies (including some published in the American Journal of Medicine) report that coffee has more than 1000 individual chemical compounds in it. To give you a frame of reference chocolate has about 250 different chemical compounds while wine has around 450. This means there is a complex relationship from a large amount of chemicals in coffee!
And though many of these are powerful stimulants that boost your mood and your energy level significantly, a number of them are also antioxidants, chlorogenic acid compounds, and a host of other ingredients that can cause a variety of different biochemical reactions in the human body.
Some of these reactions are positive – coffee has been linked to weight loss results amongst other things – and some of them can be quite negative. We’ve all met someone that has the “coffee jitters”, not at all, unlike long-term alcoholics that shake when they haven’t had a couple of Joe in a while.
While it’s hard to give a definitive answer, our research has definitely led us to say that coffee does cause acne.
How Does Coffee Cause Acne?
There are plenty of research papers and articles that link stress to acne. To summarize: the more stressed out you are the more acne you are likely to have. So what does this have to do with coffee?
The primary way that coffee causes acne is simply by increasing the response your body has to both external and internal stressors.
Each and every one of us deals with a variety of different stressful situations on a day to day basis – it’s just part of normal life. Unfortunately, when we consume coffee – especially a couple of cups throughout the day – our ability to manage and mitigate stressful situations goes out the window.
Stress and pressure are magnified significantly (at least on a biochemical level), and the acne situation you were dealing with only gets worse and worse.
How Else Does Coffee Cause Acne?
Coffee is also going to work to impair your metabolism and make you insulin resistant – and that spells trouble for those dealing with blemishes.
Some studies suggest a reduction of 40% in the insulin sensitivity occurs after consuming 3 cups of coffee daily for a year affects your body’s ability to process sugar. If your body isn’t able to effectively process sugar, your skin is much more likely to experience significant acne outbreaks. This isn’t even mentioning other health problems that can occur from insulin resistance.
This is why you’re going to want to do absolutely everything you can to curb your coffee consumption if you have a lot of acne. You don’t have to cut it out completely, but keep it to one or 2 cups a day and you should be all right. Reducing your coffee intake on the weekends is a great place to start since you typically won’t need the pick-me-up.
At Home Solutions To Your Acne
The easiest way to get rid of your acne is through simple and affordable home remedies for acne. We suggest reading our articles about using tea tree oil to reduce acne and the best soaps to use for acne. Both of these articles give a great explanation of why you should use tea tree oil and effective soaps to reduce your acne so you can keep drinking your coffee!