Food and Rosacea

Saturday, August 30th, 2008 | rosacea

What we choose to eat can have a huge impact on our skin. Certain foods in particular can have a negative effect, increasing the degree of redness of the face, commonly associated with rosacea.

Since rosacea is an inflammation of the facial skin, any food substance that can increase the inflammatory processes, will have a negative effect upon skin that suffers from rosacea. For example, foods with high levels of histamine will increase the inflammation and therefore, redness of the skin. Histamine has also been linked to cluster headaches, hypertensive episodes, and food-drug interactions.

Histamine can be found in many aged, and in some cases spoiled, foods. Examples of foods that have high histamine levels are: cheese, wine, soy sauce, pickled foods, cured meats, smoked fish, tomatoes and red peppers.

When I was first diagnosed with rosacea in my twenties, the top 3 foods that caused an increase in my facial redness were chocolate, tomatoes and red (bell) peppers. As I am getting older, I have noticed that chocolate and tomatoes do not have such a strong effect on my rosacea as they once did, while red peppers still cause me problems.

About five years ago, I started to add chocolate (organic) back to my diet. I found that my facial redness did not get worse by eating chocolate a few times a week. I don’t have any explanation for that, but it could be that the organic chocolate (which is less processed) has less of an effect on rosacea than other chocolate, perhaps due to the higher anti-oxidant content of organic chocolate.

Does the sensitivity to histamine containing foods differ between rosacea sufferers, and, does the sensitivity to a particular food change over the years as we get older? I invite my readers to leave comments about this.

Find out how our all natural rosacea treatments can benefit your skin.

Tags: food, histamine, rosacea

3 Comments to Food and Rosacea

eleanor
October 30, 2008

I have rosacea for as long as i can remember but it was only diagnosed at the beginning of the year. I am finding it very ahrd to deal with. I have alot of redness on my face, especially on my nose. I am in the process of havign laser but have not seen any great improvement so far, i have had three sesssions. I find that every afternoon in work my face absolutely explodes?? and i dont know why. the weather has gotten very bad all of a sudden, maybe this is the case? Or maybe something i am eating is effecting my face. I could eat the same foods at home though for lunch and my face wouldnt explode. Can you think of any explanations as to why this happens, im at my wits end, i really cant go on like this anymore

Regards

reverta
November 3, 2008

Eleanor,
Work is a difficult place to evaluate your face’s redness, mostly because of the fluorescent lighting (green light brings out the redness in people’s faces). I will devote a future post to this topic. Also, our faces will be more red in the afternoon due to the fact that we are usually more active in the afternoon. For the nose, you may need more than 3 laser treatments and it may take some time for the tissue to heal afterwards. The changing of the seasons can also cause your face to become redder temporarily. Best wishes

sarah c.
December 1, 2008

Eleanor, my nose also gets bright red, espacially after eating certain foods for dinner. My face always looks best in the morning and i have read that this is because of the hormone,cortisol. The cortisol deminishes throughout the day (somewhat) so redness tends to get worse at night for me anyway. Just hang in there and closely monitor what you eat and drink. Also, eating slowly helps me to avoid redness. -Sarah

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