The idea that a food choice will "get rid of" pimples oversells it. The NHS acne page lists changes in hormone levels (during puberty, periods, menopause and pregnancy), certain medicines, and skin or hair products that make skin greasy among the causes of acne. Diet isn't on that list. What the research does say about food and spots is narrower and less certain than most headlines suggest, so here it is study by study.
What the diet and acne studies found
One randomised trial comes from RMIT University in Melbourne (Smith et al., 2007). Forty-three male acne patients aged 15 to 25 spent 12 weeks on either a low-glycaemic-load diet (25% of energy from protein and 45% from low-glycaemic-index carbohydrates) or a control diet that emphasised carbohydrate-dense foods without reference to glycaemic index. Total lesion counts fell more in the low-glycaemic-load group: an average of 23.5 lesions against 12.0 in the control group.
There's a catch the authors point out themselves. The same group also lost more weight (2.9kg on average, while the control group gained 0.5kg), and they say further studies are needed to separate the effect of weight loss from the effect of the diet.
A 2015 Cochrane review of complementary therapies for acne (Cao et al.) took in 35 studies with 3,227 participants. When it combined two trials comparing a low- with a high-glycaemic-load diet at 12 weeks, it found no clear difference between the groups in non-inflammatory lesion counts (75 participants, low-quality evidence). Its overall conclusion was that there is some low-quality evidence from single trials that a low-glycaemic-load diet may reduce total skin lesions.
Dairy gets studied a lot too. A 2018 meta-analysis (Juhl et al.) pooled 14 observational studies covering 78,529 people aged 7 to 30. Any dairy was associated with higher odds of acne (odds ratio 1.25 compared with no intake), but the authors say the results should be interpreted with caution because of heterogeneity and bias across the studies. Observational studies show an association, not that milk causes spots.
A 2021 review of research from 2009 to 2020 (Dall'Oglio et al.) looked at 53 articles, 42 of them observational. It listed high-glycaemic food, dairy, fatty food and chocolate among acne-promoting factors, and fruit and vegetable intake among protective ones. It also says the role of specific food components remains an unsolved issue.
So the honest summary: diet may play some part, the trials are few and small, and none of these studies shows a single food working as a treatment on its own. The NHS starting point is skincare. Wash twice a day with a gentle cleanser, use non-comedogenic products, and ask a pharmacist about treatments you put on your skin, such as salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide. See a GP if self-treatment isn't helping or the spots are deep, painful or scarring.
What "processed" means on a label
A useful rule that has nothing to do with skin: if it's processed, bagged, jarred, bottled or boxed, check what's actually in it before deciding it's healthy. The NHS guide to food labels explains that pre-packed food must carry an ingredients list, and that ingredients are listed in descending order of weight, so the main ones always come first.
The nutrition panel helps too. By the NHS thresholds, a food is high in sugar above 22.5g of total sugars per 100g and low at 5g or less. On colour-coded front-of-pack labels, red means high, amber medium and green low.
If something you'd expect to go off within days keeps for months, that's a good reason to read the ingredients list properly before it goes in the trolley.
Whole foods, and where dates fit
Whole foods without a long ingredient list: meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruit. Dried fruit like dates sits in an odd spot here: one ingredient, but a lot of sugar. A pack of plain dates should list one ingredient, dates, so check for added syrup or oil before you buy. Piarom dates, for example, are an Iranian variety from Hormozgan: dark, semi-dry, with a thin skin.
Be clear about the sugar, though. USDA's entries list 63.35g of total sugars per 100g for Deglet Noor dates and 66.47g for Medjool, well over the NHS "high" mark. They also list 8.0g and 6.7g of dietary fibre per 100g. That makes dates a swap for a packaged sweet, not for vegetables. The NHS 5 A Day page counts 30g of dried fruit, dates included, as one portion, and says to eat it at mealtimes rather than as a between-meal snack, to reduce the risk of tooth decay. There are a few practical ideas in quick date snack ideas and a separate look at how many dates to eat each day.
Whole grains and staples
Bread, cereal and pasta aren't automatically a problem; what matters is how processed the specific product is. A wholegrain loaf with a short ingredient list and a wholegrain loaf with twenty additives are not the same food even if they look similar. Kurma Malaysia is a whole-food example worth comparing against anything sold as a "healthy" packaged snack: one ingredient versus a label you need to decode. If you're buying Piarom in particular, the Piarom price guide is the place to start.
This article is general information, not medical advice. For acne that worries you, talk to a pharmacist or doctor.
References
- NHS. Acne. nhs.uk
- Smith RN et al. A low-glycemic-load diet improves symptoms in acne vulgaris patients: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;86(1):107-15. PMID 17616769
- Cao H et al. Complementary therapies for acne vulgaris. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015;1:CD009436. PMID 25597924
- Juhl CR et al. Dairy intake and acne vulgaris: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 78,529 children, adolescents, and young adults. Nutrients. 2018;10(8):1049. PMID 30096883
- Dall'Oglio F et al. Diet and acne: review of the evidence from 2009 to 2020. Int J Dermatol. 2021;60(6):672-685. PMID 33462816
- NHS. Food labels. nhs.uk
- NHS. 5 A Day: what counts? nhs.uk
- USDA FoodData Central. Dates, deglet noor (FDC 171726) and Dates, medjool (FDC 168191). fdc.nal.usda.gov