Do you or someone you know suffer from eczema, psoriasis, or dermatitis?
If so, you probably feel like you have tried everything to heal your skin only to be frustrated with the lack of results. After going from doctor to doctor you may feel like giving up.
This is a common experience for those with inflammatory skin conditions. Conventional dermatologists will typically prescribe an array of pills and creams. While these pharmaceutical remedies may offer temporary symptomatic relief, they do not get to the root cause of the condition.
Luckily, there is good evidence to suggest that a healthy ketogenic diet can help you heal your inflammatory skin condition from the inside out. A low-carb diet can address the root cause of skin issues so that you can move on with your life.
Eczema, Psoriasis, and Dermatitis: The Root Cause
While many physicians may claim that we do not know the cause of these inflammatory skin conditions, there is strong evidence to suggest they begin in the digestive tract. These inflammatory skin conditions are considered to be autoimmune in nature. Autoimmunity is when your body’s immune system begins to attack your own tissues, in this case the skin.
Your Internal Skin
The tissue that lines your digestive tract can be thought of as your “internal skin.” Being specialized in assimilating nutrition, it has a vital role in your overall health.
As a result, your internal skin’s health is reflected on your external skin. Inflammation of your internal skin cause inflammation of your external skin.
So what determines the level of inflammation of your internal skin? Your microbiome.
The Microbiome
The large intestine is at the end of your digestive tract. Most commonly referred to as “the gut,” this section of your digestive tract houses hundreds of trillions of bacteria. Some of these bacteria are good, some are bad, and some are neutral.
The good bacteria, known as probiotics, serve many functions in the body. They help digest your food, they produce neurotransmitters, and they modulate your immune system.
But when these good bacteria become outnumbered by bad bacteria, inflammation is the result. Your immune system recognizes the bad bacteria as invaders and begins to mount a defense. When this defensive reaction persists for too long, your immune system can become overactive. The overactive immune system then begins to attack your external skin because the tissue is similar to your internal skin.
Thus, you get an autoimmune skin condition such as eczema, psoriasis, or dermatitis.
How the Keto Zone Diet Can Help
The Keto Zone Diet is an anti-inflammatory diet. When you eat low-carb, you minimize the inflammatory process of sugar metabolism. Additionally, most of the bad bacteria in your gut feed off sugar. By reducing your sugar consumption, you can starve out the bad bacteria and bring your gut back in to balance.
What to Eat
A healthy ketogenic diet includes lots low-carb vegetables. This includes cruciferous veggies, leafy greens, herbs, and alliums. Eat your vegetables cooked for easier digestibility. You also want to include lots of healthy fats from olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and grass-fed butter. Eat moderate protein from chicken, turkey, fish, and grass-fed beef, bison, and venison.
In addition to a standard ketogenic diet, you will want to make some minor changes to help with your inflammatory skin condition.
Remove:
Add:
Probiotics are good bacteria that will help crowd out the bad guys and reduce the body’s inflammatory reaction.
Additional Tips
Try to get the affected body part exposed to the sun for about 15-20 minutes per day. UV light exposure has been shown to have a positive effect on inflammatory skin conditions. Make sure to get around 8 hours of sleep per night so your body can heal and regenerate. You can also use extra virgin coconut oil topically on affected areas to help soothe the inflammation and nourish the skin.
The Bottom Line
You do not need to suffer with the embarrassment and frustration of your inflammatory skin condition for the rest of your life.
Eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis are all manageable conditions that can be largely resolved with the proper diet and lifestyle interventions.
Now that you can stop worrying about your skin, you can go out and enjoy your life!