Does Coffee Cause Acne?

Warning – this entire post is about how coffee sucks and exacerbates acne.

But I love coffee and I’ve tried to quit several times. I’ve tried several different substitutes. And in Part 2 I will reveal how I now drink coffee anyway. I’ll share my specific set-up for minimizing adverse health effects, while still getting to have this beverage I love so much.  

First let’s go over why coffee is such a bummer. 

#ONE – Coffee magnifies the body’s stress response by over 200%

How is this bad? Caffeine makes your adrenal glands over-react to stressful events and pump out too much stress hormones. Like we don’t have enough stress, amiright? Unfortunately, your body does not have an infinite amount of stress hormones, and when it runs out of cortisol, it starts stealing progesterone. A progesterone deficiency upsets a delicate hormonal balance in a woman’s body that ultimately results in too much testosterone being produced. This triggers sebum production and hormonal activity on the skin that leads to acne.

That’s not all. When the body releases stress hormones, including adrenaline, this sends a signal to the liver to release stored glucose (a form of sugar). Biologically this makes sense since the body is anticipating you will need energy for either fighting or fleeing. But more sugar in the blood triggers the release of insulin, the hormone responsible for regulating this sugar, and helping our body use it and store it. Insulin triggers the release of androgens, which are acne causing hormones. It is these androgens (and your skin’s genetic sensitivity to them) that cause the skin to:

• overproduce sebum.
• over-produce new skin cells, which makes your pores more likely to get clogged.
• get inflamed.

Lastly, cortisol depresses your immune system, making it much more difficult (and slow) for your skin to heal existing lesions and prevent new ones.

#TWO – Coffee causes insulin resistance

Acne-prone people are already highly sensitive to carbs and sugar, but drinking coffee actually makes it even more difficult for your body to process carbohydrates effectively. Coffee makes you insulin resistant (for a short term – up to a week, but if you are drinking coffee everyday this insulin resistance can behave as though it were chronic), which can lead to systemic elevated insulin and blood sugar. People with insulin resistance have cells that don’t use insulin effectively. This means the cells have trouble absorbing glucose, which causes a buildup of sugar in the blood. Not only does this cause acne, but it can also cause diabetes and is associated with PCOS.

One study found that when healthy men drank coffee, they had 40% reduced insulin sensitivity after they ate a high-glycemic meal an hour later. That means their blood sugar stayed elevated for a much longer period of time than it normally would. Another study found that this insulin-resistance effect lasts for a week after coffee consumption.

Insulin resistance is a very troubling state – for one, it creates a very bad feedback loop: insulin resistance causes more insulin to be released, which causes more androgens to be released, which cause insulin resistance to increase!

Since acne-prones are already so sensitive to insulin and carbs, the last thing we want to do is exacerbate it!

#THREE – Coffee loves milk and sugar

Maybe you drink your coffee black – but if you don’t, chances are you are adding milk, cream and/or sugar. Dairy and sugar are two of the most consistently and significantly problematic foods for acne sufferers, so put the PSL down and back away. I personally would rarely ever have dairy, except for I love cream in my coffee. True story – once I tried to be a vegan, and everything was fine EXCEPT for subbing out cream and using soy or almond milk instead with my coffee. Yes, my coffee drinking habit was the downfall of my almost vegan life.

#FOUR – Coffee makes you crave bad-for-acne food

Coffee triggers stress hormones (and how – see #ONE above) and when you’re stressed, it’s no accident that you crave fatty/salty/sweet foods. It’s biology. Again, your body thinks you’re going to be doing a lot of fighting and fleeing, so it is trying to get you energy-dense foods. Of course, those foods are basically made entirely out of different combinations of the top four acne triggers – milk/dairy, gluten/processed carbs, sugar, and preservatives/processed additives.

#FIVE – Coffee blocks mineral absorption

When you drink coffee with a meal (or close to a meal), it impairs your body’s ability to absorb minerals from your food. That’s a really big potential issue for acne-prones, because acne can be exacerbated by deficiencies in minerals like zinc, selenium, copper and iron.

In fact, one study found that drinking coffee with a meal (or up to 1 hour after eating) impaired iron absorption by a significant 72%.

That means if you’re washing down your zinc supplement with coffee, you might be rendering it useless!

#SIX – Coffee impairs gut health

This is a big one.

Evidence suggests that the composition of the intestinal microbiome can make you more susceptible to chronic diseases including ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, celiac disease and irritable bowel syndrome, as well as more systemic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. The implications there are enormous. Your acne, your inability to lose weight, your cravings, even your MOOD could all simply be being caused by the makeup of bacteria in your gut.

Further, if the health and balance of the GI microbiome is disrupted, inappropriate inflammatory processes can result. It was originally believed that the composition of the intestinal microbiota was relatively stable from early childhood; however, recent evidence suggests that diet can cause dysbiosis, an alteration in the composition of the microbiota, which could lead to aberrant immune responses.

Coffee is highly acidic and as such, it can contribute to dysbiosis.

Since dysbiosis can lead to conditions as severe as gluten intolerance, IBS and even diabetes, it’s no surprise that it can have a majorly negative effect on your skin. When our intestinal bacteria are unhealthy, we don’t process nutrients OR toxins as efficiently as we should. So we don’t get the nutrients our body needs for healthy skin (vitamins and minerals) AND our body has to deal with higher than average toxin levels.

When our bodies are in toxic overload, the presence of low-level toxins that make their way to your skin disrupt healthy skin function.

Dysbiosis also triggers gut inflammation, which can lead to leaky gut and persistent low-level inflammation.

If you’re drinking coffee, you’re nullifying the positive effects of any probiotics you may be ingesting. Healthy gut flora is crucial to maintaining clear skin – one reason that Candida cleanses consistently produce incredible results with acne sufferers. My Candida cleanse majorly helped my skin and the effects are STILL in effect almost a year later. With my gut flora re-healthified, I can actually be more lax in my diet and my skin is much more resilient. Big yay. And thank you, gut.

{We will be doing Candida Cleanses as a group occasionally. Stay tuned by signing up for emails below.}

#SEVEN – Mycotoxins

Mycotoxins are toxic chemicals manufactured by mold to kill bacteria. Hence, many common medicines are derived from mycotoxins; penicillin is a chemical derived from the Penicillium mold family.

But mycotoxins can kill humans when eaten or breathed in excess.

The single biggest source of mycotoxins are foods contaminated with mold. Poor quality coffee, chocolate, beer, wine, nuts, and beans may all contain mycotoxins.

Generally acne-prones don’t have to worry about mycotoxins BUT if your acne is ultra persistent, try avoiding low quality coffee, which is consistently seriously contaminated.

To be fair, coffee farmers have been well aware of the mycotoxin problem for years. Coffee is actually assigned a quality score which is partially based on mycotoxin count. Contaminated beans are either discarded or sold for dirt cheap, totally unprofitable prices. Hence, farmers use many techniques to keep mold from proliferating. Roasting also reduces mycotoxins by up to 93%.

There’s perhaps only one type of coffee where mycotoxins become a serious problem and they are instant, decaffeinated brands. Instant coffee is typically made from the cheapest, lowest quality beans, beans which are cheap precisely due to being assigned a poor quality score due to mycotoxins. Furthermore, caffeine has strong antifungal effects; it’s found in coffee beans as a natural antibiotic to keep the plant free from moulds and disease. (If you want an acne friendly decaffeinated coffee, then simply buy a more expensive brand.)

So for me, this is not a big concern, but I suppose worth mentioning since we’re roasting coffee right now – get it?

#EIGHT – Dehydration

Like sodium and alcohol, caffeine dehydrates our bodies. Our main detoxification organs – liver and kidneys – depend on water for the detoxification process. Dehydrating the body overworks and inhibits the liver function, which causes toxic build up in the body. When that happens, the body asks the skin to help with taking up the toxins and that really does a number on how fresh and healthy it looks, and contributes to acne.

Additionally, dehydrated skin causes inflammation and collagen loss, both of which accelerate pre-mature aging. Dehydrated skin also gets compacted comedones WAY MORE EASILY. = acne.

My Personal Experience

I want to share my personal health issues with coffee, as a concrete case study.

My family LOVES coffee so I was indoctrinated at a young age. I, and my family members, would drink it continuously throughout the day. 2, 3, 4 cups easy.

For me it is a HUGE coping mechanism for MANY things. It helps me focus, it helps me cope with stress, it relieves anxiety and depression (temporarily of course) and it helps with boredom/procrastination. Yep, it’s there for EVERYTHING!

For years, I got away with this, and there were no adverse effects (other than my skin).

Skin-wise, my skin was very dull and dry – zero elasticity. The acne I got from coffee was really dry blackheads on the bottom halves of my cheeks, chin, upper lip and around my nose. I would also get little closed comedones on my temples and forehead. Super dehydrated basically.

I was just used to it. And I loved coffee more than pretty skin, which seemed basically unattainable anyway.

But then, in the winter of last year, I developed a condition know as interstitial cystitis – which is like IBS, but for the bladder. It basically feels like you have a UTI ALL the time, and anything remotely acidic food or drink-wise is VERY ill-advised. Coffee can both contribute to causing it and DEFINITELY is basically the #1 exacerbator.

By cutting coffee completely (drinking herbal coffee replacements like Dandyblend), changing my diet and working intensely on reducing stress, I was able to heal from the IC…so, coffee slowly crept back in again, until I was back to my usual 2-4 cups a day.

But then I began to notice my energy levels dipping and alarmingly, my ability to get up every morning was significantly inhibited. When I was drinking 2-4 cups of coffee a day, they began to have OPPOSITE the intended effect! I was tired and grouchy all day (usually coffee does not affect my energy levels). Most noticeably, no matter how early I went to bed, or how much sleep I got, it always felt almost like I was hungover or deeply depressed the next day. I was abnormally groggy in the morning and began sleeping in later and later. That was frustrating, since I had always been able to rise early and feel a certain level of alertness and refreshment upon waking – even during all my previous coffee drinking years.

This is an important lesson, since it illustrates our body can CHANGE how it reacts to an acne trigger (or acne healer – or really any health/food/lifestyle trigger). Maybe you’re convinced coffee is not significantly exacerbating your acne, or maybe you’ve tried a topical retinol to no avail.

If it’s been a while, it may be time to retest.

And you may be surprised at how your body’s reaction has changed.

Anyhoo, obviously, it turns out that coffee was the reason for my sleepiness in the am. Coffee screws up your normal sleep/wake hormone cycle. In the morning, your cortisol levels are supposed to be highest (which helps you wake up in the morning), but chronic coffee drinkers don’t experience this naturally elevated cortisol in the morning, so they have to drink coffee to spike their cortisol back to normal levels. I guess my cortisol was reeaalllly low, and I’m guessing in the past, my younger body was more resilient and way less stressed.

But I want Coffee

So do I. I’m sure you’re wondering what next. How to have your coffee and clear skin too? Or – whether quitting coffee IS right for you and how to do it?

Stay tuned for the next post. I will share all my work-arounds, substitution ideas, quitting strategy, and tricky tricks to keep getting my beloved brew with you in the next post.

Many thanks for this article for serving as the bones and much of the meat for this post.