By Anna Bielkheden
Anna Bielkheden Shares How Vitamin A Came to Her Rescue and How it Could Save You From Misery Too.
Acne is a very unpleasant skin condition that affects people of all ages and genders. I myself experienced severe acne during and after my pregnancy and I know exactly how difficult it can be. I tried everything, but it only seemed to get worse.
Finally I went to a dermatologist who took one look at me and said, ‘You need Accutane’. I started Accutane and immediately my acne started to clear up. After taking it two months, my skin stayed pimple free and I barely had a zit in a year. Slowly however, the acne came creeping back – never as bad as it was, but still moderately severe at times.
Because of the high cost of Accutane, I tried again to find another way. I knew that Accutane contained very large amounts of Vitamin A, and I started researching results about using regular Vitamin A capsules to combat acne. It turned out several people had done this with success and so I decided to give it a shot.
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin needed to sustain a hormonal balance, in turn regulating the production of sebum. When the body’s hormonal balance is disturbed, the oil glands in the skin can overproduce and cause clogged pores and pimples. The drug Accutane is a retinoid or vitamin A derivative and hence it helps control the sebum production. Higher than RDI doses of vitamin A is known to have toxic side-effects, and thus exaggerated intake should be carefully monitored by a doctor.
I bought Vitamin A 25 000 IU capsules from Now foods and took about five pills a day. Right away, I noticed the exact same results as I got when taking Accutane.
The only side effects I had, just like with the prescription drug, was dry lips, eyes and nose. However for keeping my skin clear and avoiding scarring, this seemed like a small price to pay.
Now, I again only took it for a brief period and it still kept the acne away; now if I feel a cyst or some smaller pimples coming on I take it for 2-3 days and they are gone. An interesting note to this article is that a recent study measuring the plasma levels of Vitamin A in severe acne sufferers versus healthy patients have shown that the concentration of the substance varied significantly between the two test groups.
The process involved testing 100 newly diagnosed untreated patients with acne and 100 healthy controls, using high performance liquid chromatography.
The vitamin A concentrations in patients with acne showed that the numbers were markedly lower than in non-sufferers (336.5 vs 418.1 mug/L.)
Conclusively, it seems that lower than normal vitamin A play an important part in the formation and exasperation of an acne condition.
One may increase the daily intake of vitamin A by eating lots of carrots, sweet potatoes, green vegetables and yellow/orange fruits, or use specific supplements as mentioned above.
Anna Bielkheden has worked steadily as a makeup artist for the past 15 years. She’s worked with Swedish Top Model host and super stylist Jonas Hallberg in his own television show “The Superstylist”, “Swedish Hollywood Wives”, “In Shape with Anna Anka” and numerous other productions.