Acne Isn’t a Skin Problem! The Gut, Liver & Hormone Connection

Why Acne Persists Beyond the Teen Years 0:00

So if you're in your twenties or early thirties and wondering why you are still breaking out like a teenager, it's because your route drivers haven't changed that much. They've just shifted slightly in which one is actually leading the charge now. Now in adults over 35, and I'm speaking directly to women here in their 35 to 55 range who make up a big part of this audience, the picture shifts a little. You're no longer in puberty surge. but your hormones are still at a balance. Estrogen and progesterone start to shift in perimenopause and when they fall out of their normal ratio, your skin can respond the same way a teenager's does.

More oil, more clogged pores, and more inflammation. On top of that, we're all swimming in synthetic chemicals and of course that applies to the younger groups as well. Things like microplastic, personal care products, food packaging, that behave like fake estrogens in the body and make the imbalance even worse. And then there's stress. Chronic stress, which of course can also apply to the younger ages, raises cortisol and cortisol can tell your adrenal glands to make more androgens. That's why so many women in their 30s and 40s are breaking out along the jawline and chin.

that pattern almost always traces back to stress hormones. Now, different life stages here, same route. Your hormones are out of balance and your scan is reporting on the problem. Welcome to Vitality Radio, the podcast that helps you make sense of natural supplements and thrive without pharma drugs. I'm Jared St. Clair. Welcome to Vitality Radio. I'm your host each and every week twice a week. My name is Jared St. Clair. Today we're talking about acne and it's not a skin problem. It never really was.

Whether you're a teenager who's been breaking out since puberty or an adult who sailed through adolescence just fine and is now looking at your face in your 30s or 40s wondering what on earth is happening. The answer is the same. Your skin is reporting to you on what's happening inside your body. The liver, the gut, and the endocrine system. Today we're getting into what is actually driving acne from a functional medicine standpoint, what to do about it, And yes, we are going to talk about Accutane because I have some strong opinions and I think you need to hear about them.

Now, I've had a lot of success. It's not foolproof. There's a lotta variables, but I had lotta success over the years helping teens to adults with acne issues, including a pretty big handful of my own teens. And it is something that is way more achievable than you think. I don't know how many times a year, but it's got to be a dozen or more times of year. People come to me asking specifically, you know, I've tried everything for acne. It's not working.

Acne as a Hormone and Internal Health Signal 2:51

I'm considering Accutane. My teen is miserable. Whatever it is. And I am hoping this show will give you some hope that there is an option out there. Share with you what they are, the things that I have had success with. It's basically a system that I've recommended for years. I don't know if perfected is the right word, but it's pretty close. We've had some really, really great success with what I'm going to share with you today. All right. So what's actually happening with acne? We're going get into that for just a moment and different age groups.

Acne, of course, is this. unit, or it's formed in the pillow sebaceous unit. In the skin, the hair follicle plus the attached oil gland. When sebum overproduces, when the cell lining and the follicles clogs things up, a bacterium called c-acnes, it is cutobacterium acnes but we'll call it c acmes for short, thrives there and your immune system fires an inflammatory response. That's the pimple or the zit. The question conventional medicine rarely asks, of course, is why is the sebum overproducing in the first place?

Because modern medicine doesn't ask why, it just hammers things down with what I call suppressive medicine. But we're going to talk about the root cause and how to get underneath that. Because the answer lives in your hormones and your hormone live downstream of your liver and gut. In teenagers, puberty floods the body with androgens, male hormones. They're present in both boys and girls, and those hormones tell the oil glands to ramp up production. That's the starting gun, but the diet pours fuel on the fire.

When you eat a lot of sugar, refined carbs and dairy, your blood sugar spikes, you're insulin spikes. And that chain reaction tells your body to produce even more oil and signals your skin cells to start clogging things up. A 2011 study on people whose bodies don't produce normal levels of that insulin driven hormone found dramatically lower rates of acne. What you eat is directly controlling how oily your skin is. And that's not a small thing for people in their late teens through mid thirties.

It's often a combination of both worlds. The puberty surge may have settled a bit, but the hormonal environment hasn't necessarily stabilized for young women. This is when PCOS shows up often. A condition where androgen levels stay elevated and oil production stays high. It's also when birth control often enters the picture, which can mask hormonal acne while you're on it and then cause a significant rebound when you come off. For young men, testosterone is still running high through the twenties and things like whey protein supplements, interestingly enough, and high sugar diets keep IGF-1 elevated well past the teenage years.

So one thing that you can consider is if whey protein might be exacerbating it. Now I'm not necessarily not a fan of whee protein. In fact, I sell a lot of Whey Protein. I use it myself. A lot whew protein if it's a good high quality form, but there is some indication that the IG-F1 impact of way protein could be a problem. This is where bone broth protein like our Rebuild Plus could come in handy. So at least worth trying maybe for a month to see if whey protein could be a factor for you. And for both men and women at this stage in life where stress, sleep deprivation, fast food, and often multiple rounds of antibiotics start doing real damage to the gut microbiome, which we'll get into in just a moment because it's a huge piece of the puzzle.

So if you're in your 20s or early 30s and wondering why you are still breaking out like a teenager, it is because your route drivers haven't changed that much. They've just shifted slightly in which one is actually leading the charge now.

Liver Detox Support for Hormonal Acne 6:39

Now in adults over 35, and I'm speaking directly to women here in their 35 to 55 range who make up a big part of this audience, the picture shifts a little. You're no longer in puberty surge, but your hormones are still at a balance. Estrogen and progesterone start to shift in perimenopause and when they fall out of their normal ratio, your skin can respond the same way a teenager's does. More oil, more clogged pores, and more inflammation. On top of that, we're all swimming in synthetic chemicals and of course that applies to the younger groups as well.

Things like microplastic, personal care products, food packaging, that behave like fake estrogens in the body and make the imbalance even worse. And then there's stress. Chronic stress, which of course can also apply to the younger ages, raises cortisol and cortisol can tell your adrenal glands to make more androgens. That's why so many women in their 30s and 40s are breaking out along the jawline and chin. that pattern almost always traces back to stress hormones. Now different life stages here, same route.

Your hormones are out of balance and your skin is reporting on the problem. So let's start with the clearance and how clearing these things out through the liver play a role in this because whenever you're looking at the skin, now we're talking acne today, but when eczema or psoriasis or any number of skin issues, particularly inflammatory skin issue, we are always looking the the gut and the suspecting that something is out of balance in those areas. Because once you understand that hormones are driving this issue with acne specifically, you have to ask why those hormones aren't being cleared effectively.

And the answer there is the liver. Your liver is, the primary hormone processing organ, androgens, estrogenes, cortisol byproducts. All of it goes through phase one and phase two liver detoxification to be metabolized, packaged, and eliminated. In the modern world, most people's livers are overburdened. Environmental toxins, medications, food additives, alcohol, the liver is juggling all of that simultaneously. When it can't keep up, excess hormones recirculate. The skin keeps getting the signal to produce more oil.

From a functional medicine standpoint, opening that liver clearance pathway is one of the most powerful things you can do for hormonal acne. And virtually no dermatologist will ever bring it up because it's not in their toolkit. The ingredients with the best research for supporting both phase one and phase two liver detoxification together in my book are as follows. Milk thistle. This milk thistle has something called silmarin, which is an extremely protective phytochemical for proper liver function and detoxification.

NAC, acetylcysteine, is a direct glutathione precursor. Selenium, most Americans are deficient in. and which is an essential co-factor for making glutathione in the first place, alpha lipoic acid for phase two support and dandelion root for bioproduction and bio flow. And then lastly, Google, not the search engine, but the Ayurvedic herb is a resin that supports bio production and flow also, But in different ways than dandalion does. And bile, of course, is one of the primary vehicles the liver uses to carry packaged hormones out of.

My liver vitality formula has all of these together and that both phases part that matters a lot. We can't just support phase one or phase two. It's got to be both supporting both of those is what prevents traffic jams and then mobilize toxins getting back into the system where you do not want them. And what about endocrine detoxification? You've heard me talk a lot about that lately, 588 and 589, I believe, are two of the shows I did on this. And we're still working on formalizing or finalizing our protocol because we've had lots of issues with that.

But we already have the liver vitality and we have endo-cleanse. We're going to talk about why endocleanse matters here because it's a big, big deal because have these hormone-mimicking chemicals. that block up the endocrine system that confuse the body as to what it's supposed to be producing. And when it is producing those things, the message isn't getting through because we have so many blocked receptors at the cellular level. There are three compounds that have been found to by far the most effective for getting rid of these chemicals that are coming from plastics, from any of this endocrine disrupting chemical sources.

DIM is critical from cruciferous vegetables. It helps to shift estrogen metabolism towards the beneficial 2-hydroxy form and away from the problematic metabolites that drive estrogen-dominant symptoms.

Endocrine Disruption and Gut Microbiome Support 11:23

Also, something known as indole-3-carbinol, sometimes referred to as I3C, works upstream of D.I.M. along the same pathway. and one that I think is way under recognized and under utilized is called calcium deglucurate, which blocks an enzyme called beta glucuronidase that bad gut bacteria produces to unpackage hormones and toxins your liver already conjugated for elimination, sending them right back into circulation. This is really important to understand and it's something that i've been educating myself on a lot over the last little bit.

this deglucurate picture because we talk about gut dysbiosis and we talked about liver toxicity. But one of the things that I think has been sort of this missing link in our understanding just how critical it is to get the gut microbiome where it needs to be in order for it to not make this beta glucuronidase at these high levels that ends up basically recycling these packaged toxins and allowing them to back into the system. It's it's why in our endocrine detox protocol that we've been working on back on track is a player in that because we have to get the gut where it needs to be in order for everything else from the detoxification pathways to actually work and what.

calcium deglucrate does is it keeps those toxins packaged for delivery out of the body through the liver. Endo Cleanze has all three of these things in it. And when you run it alongside liver vitality, You have a really nice combination of detoxifying these things, finding balance for the hormones at all ages from teen all the way through any of these ages where people are struggling with acne. That combination has been phenomenal and it's based on years of use of other products that are kind of in that same vein that I've had great success with over the years as well.

Now, you've heard of the gut-brain axis. Have you heard about the gutskin axis? Because the Gutskin Axis is no longer a fringe concept. The research is very solid on this. Multiple studies confirm that acne is directly tied to the health of your gut microbiome, and the connection runs through your immune system. When the gut is out of balance, the immune system is at a balance too, and your skin pays the price. Here's the practical translation. C-acnes, that bacterium we talked about, is present in the skin of both people who have acne breakouts and people don't.

The difference isn't the bacterium, it's the intensity of the inflammatory response. A dysbiotic gut tips the immune system toward a pro-inflammatory baseline, so the response to normal skin bacteria becomes exaggerated. You don't just want to kill this C. acnes bacteriom, you want a system that just isn t overreacting to it. And my favorite superstar when it comes to the gut specific to this, because there is actual human clinical evidence that this absolutely works and works in a really, really profound way, is called Saccharomyces bouillardii.

Sacchermyces Bouillardi is a non-pathogenic yeast probiotic, something very good for the body. It's transient, it's not a colonizer in the cut, It gets in there, does some really great work, and then it leaves. It's one of the most useful tools in the space because a study found that more than 80% of people taking espulardi experience considerable improvement in acne over just five months. Mechanistically, it makes a ton of sense because it modulates gut microbial balance. It suppresses pathogenic organisms.

it supports the gut lining and integrity of gutlining and reduces systemic inflammation signaling. It's also particularly critical for anyone who has taken oral antibiotics for any reason, but especially if you've been on antibiotics, for acne, which is an enormous portion of people with chronic acne. A Harvard study in 2016 found that espulardi significantly protected gut microbiome diversity in people taking antibiotics actively because you can take espularity with your antibiotic. And the espularity will be still effective.

It doesn't get killed off by antibiotics and it's extremely protective. Now I'm always going to warn you against antibiotics as much as possible, but if you've chosen that route or you feel the need to get on one, espularte is one of the powerhouses that you can take while you're on it. Because in that Harvard study, it showed a substantial benefit, way less loss of beneficial bacteria versus the people who were not taking espula already while taking their antibiotic. And then the spores, my three favorite spore are all bacillus strains, bacilus coagulans, Bacillis subtilis, and we don't have direct acne studies like we do on espularity, but there's a logical chain.

They're among the best research tools we have for restoring gut diversity, reducing intestinal inflammation and modulating immune response. And we just established that a dysbiotic gut drives a hyperactive immune system. And a Hyperactive Immune System is what turns normal skin bacteria into a full blown breakout. So while nobody has done the specific trial, the mechanism connects very cleanly. It just makes sense that the healthier gut microbiome means a calmer immune. A calmar immune means your skin stops overreacting to bacteria that were never the real problem to begin with.

And so this is why, and I can tell you, yes, there are not studies on this specific to acne, but for over 10 years now, I've been recommending these spore probiotics with excellent success when used with an endocrine detoxification supplement like Endo Cleanze. So liver vitality to make sure the pathways open, endo cleanse to makes sure that we're detoxifying these endocrine disrupting chemicals and either vital spores or back on track. Kind of your choice, but the vital Spores I think probably makes the most sense specific to acne because it does have that espulardi in there as well as

Topical Options and Accutane Risks 17:27

the three other spore. However, if you've got a lot of digestive discomfort, gassiness and bloating and things with meals, then I think the Back On Track is an excellent option because you also get the digestive enzymes as well. Some people for the first month will even do both the vital spores and the back on track for first couple of months and then they'll go to Back on Track as just a maintenance thing. And then there is a topical piece to this because yes, while it is an inside out problem, the outside matters as well.

And the skin microbiome matters here for sure. So we're going to get to the surface of the problem now, not the root cause so much, but what's happening at the. Skin itself. with things like benzoyl peroxide. They're oxidizing to the skin and they're harsh on the. Topical antibiotics like clindamycin are contributing to a documented resistance crisis. Just last year, there was a research review that noted that topical anti-biotics like Clindamiacin are rapidly losing ground to resistant C acne strains.

We're actually building like we do. antibiotic resistant strains by overusing antibiotics on the skin. Neither of these types of things, the benzoyl peroxide or the clindamycin or other skin antibiotics address root causes. They just ruin the gut microbiome and the skim microbiomes more. Yes, you may see relief, but what are you causing downstream? Now, nano colloidal silver is a different category all unto itself. A 2026 systematic review this just happened in RSC Pharmaceutics confirmed that silver nanoparticles critically silver works through multiple simultaneous electrochemical and physical mechanisms rather than a single biochemical one, which means bacteria cannot develop resistance to it the way that they do to antibiotics.

That is a huge advantage. Our triple action nanosilver from Vitality Nutrition lives up to its name because standard ionic silver donates one electron per particle and then it is spent. Our formula's unique particle structure allows thousands of electron donations It keeps working the entire time it's on the skin. It also emits a resonant frequency that extends actively beyond direct contact and carries an electrostatic charge that actively disrupts the microbial surface environment. Third party human studies have backed the formula clean, non-irritating, no microbiome disruption.

It fits into this protocol exactly where a topical should. And I have to give you a personal story on that. So I don't really break out with acne. from a gut standpoint, a liver standpoint. I think I'm in pretty good shape. But what I do get from this bald head of mine is I shave my head and I get these little red irritated bumps. And sometimes I'll end up scratching them off and not real realizing what's happening. Then I got the little, red, little bit of blood, put a tissue up on my hand, that kind of thing.

Super annoying. I finally started using my own product, the Nano Silver, every time after I shaved my head and for the next two or three days. I shave my hair about every four or five days and since I've done that, significantly less of these little bumpy irritations. It's really cool. i have a much more clear bald head since i started. Using this, but i've had really good success with people with specifically acne using the nano silver gel as well. Now a word of caution about Accutane. Accutane does clear acne quite effectively for a lot of people, for sure.

And for severe nodular cystic acne, it suppresses sebum production dramatically and for some people it provides lasting relief. So I can't argue with that. But there's also something else you need to know that's very real. The National Institutes of Health own drug toxicity database documents that liver enzyme can be up as high as 15% more in patients on Accutane. and the mechanism appears to be a direct toxicity to liver cells at higher doses, which is why liver monitoring is required throughout the treatment.

This is the same liver you need working well to clear the excess hormones that are driving the acne in the first place. Does this sound familiar? Do I sound like a broken record where the drug actually exacerbates the existing problem? Yeah, I do sound a like broken records because it's just how drugs work a lot of the time. There's also a mental health risk and this is not a small thing and it's the scariest thing if you ask me specifically when we're talking about teenagers. The mental-health risks are documented in the FDA's own prescribing information and carry a mandatory warning, depression, mood changes, irritability, psychosis, and suicidal ideation.

The American Academy of Dermatology explicitly recommends screening patients for depression and suicidal thoughts before prescribing. We're talking in many cases about teenagers here. This demands some real serious thought. And then there's IBD, inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn's and ulcerative colitis have been identified as a possible side effect under active investigation because IB D devastates the gut microbiome, which was probably already in trouble before you went on Accutane. Then there is what's called the teratogenicity issue.

That's the capacity to cause severe birth defects. It is so established that any patient of childbearing potential must use two simultaneous forms of contraception and submit regular pregnancy tests as part of a mandatory federal risk management program. That is not a footnote. That's a defining characteristic of this drug. And then there's the functional medicine objection that sits above all of these, which is that drug addresses none of the root causes we covered today. It forces sebum production down by suppressing the gland.

When people relapse, the underlying environment is still exactly where it was. or in most cases worse because it's so hard on the microbiome and the liver, the two areas of the body where acne is coming from in the first place. So what do you do with this information? Well, it is really pretty simple. It is not one step. It's not 1 pill per day. Its not just rubbing a cream or an ointment or a cleanser on your skin. The first thing you do is look at diet. You always look a diet, refine carbohydrates and sugars, create an insulin spike and an insulins spike creates more sebum which creates acne.

Natural Acne Protocol and Closing Advice 24:18

So we're always looking at that first, but then we are looking what else? Supporting the liver. As I said, liver vitality is the formula we recommend for that. Support the detoxification of the chemical load of endocrine system through endo cleanse. Now, the way that you do this, one month on liver vitality for most people, two months if you feel like your liver may be struggling even more. This would be people who are using a lot of Tylenol, have had any indication that they may have fatty liver or anything like that.

You'll want to do at least two months of the liver vitality. And then you do it periodically for a month, maybe every six months. Do Endo Cleanse for atleast two month's, preferably three. you can do the first month simultaneously with the Liver Vitality, or even the 1st two-months simultaneously, with Liver vitaly. But go at leas two moths on Endocleanse, if not three, Then reevaluate, see where your acne is. See how things are going. If you are a female, See what's happening with your cycle. Or I should at least say, if you're menstruating female and if You are not, If You're a Female that's still dealing with a little Acne in that perimenopause or menopausal range.

see what happening With all those other symptoms, mood, brain fog, weight gain. hot flashes, all those types of things and evaluate after a few months and see where you're at on that and be rebuilding the gut through that entire process. Like I said, if you've got a lot of discomfort after meals back on track, it makes a ton of sense. If not, then utilizing the vital spores formula and doing that for a minimum of three months at one per day. is recommended and then using the intelligent topical support as opposed to the chemical topically support and that would be the triple action nanosilver from Vitality Nutrition.

If you give this consistency for 60 to 90 days, this combination, you have a high likelihood of seeing a significant reduction in acne. I've seen it time and time, and I highly recommend that you Take the challenge and see what it can do, especially if it's going to prevent you from getting on antibiotics or Accutane. I would love to see you do the natural first, at least really give it a shot because the drugs will always be there, but this could potentially prevent that from ever being needed in the first place.

Okay. I hope this was a helpful episode. If you have questions, you can call us 801-292-6662. You can visit us if you're here in Utah, either our South Ogden location or our bountiful location are available for you. And you jump on our website, vitalityandnutrition.com. Everything will be linked in the show description. Spread the word. I would greatly appreciate leaving your views on Spotify or Apple, liking, subscribing, and commenting on YouTube and sharing this show anywhere you can would be extremely helpful for me.

And I greatly appreciated it. My name is Jared St. Clair and this has been Vitality Radio. Thanks for listening to the Vitaly Radio Podcast. If this episode helped you, follow the show, share it with someone, and explore trusted education and resources at vitalitynutrition.com. See you next time. Hello, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Vitality Radio. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast has not been evaluated by the FDA. Thank you.