Dairy Products, Acne, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? ProHealth.com April 30, 2003 Editor’s note: The following letter was written in response to an article about dairy products and acne that was published in the journal Topics in Advanced Practice Nursing. The author of this letter is a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) patient and RN who has an interesting personal insight into a possible link between dairy products, acne treatment and CFS. Source: Topics in Advanced Practice Nursing eJournal Patricia Peters, RN I am writing about the article Adolescent Acne: A Stepwise Approach to Management. I am 58 years old and as a teenager and young adult suffered with the embarrassment of acne. Today, I still have all the scarring from those years. When I was 35 years old, in 1978, I became one of the first victims in this country with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). I was nonfunctioning for 5 years. I thought my life had ended as I once knew it. In my quest to get well, I became aware of the connection between diet, allergies, and CFS. My life was saved by physicians who followed the writings of authors like William Crook, who wrote The Yeast Connection. It was in the early 1980s that I was told that a dairy allergy would cause acne, as well as contribute to CFS. When I stopped all dairy foods, I never had another acne break-out. I also discovered that dairy was the cause of my puffy eyes that I had since early childhood. Today, when I eat dairy foods, I will get an isolated pimple that takes a long time to go away -- and my eyes get puffy as well. In Crook's book [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the Yeast Connection by William Crook, M.D.], he addresses the contributing factors of CFS. One factor is antibiotics for acne use. I used tetracycline as a teenager in an unsuccessful attempt to control my acne. My son also developed acne in his teenage years. He stopped eating dairy products and no longer had a problem. I frequently recommend eliminating dairy from the diet to people who have acne. They report successful results. I am disappointed to read that dairy elimination is not a consideration in this article. Patricia Peters, was a medical surgical nurse for 5 years. Since 1981, she has managed the natural foods department in her family-owned supermarket. Topics in Advanced Practice Nursing eJournal 2(2), 2002. © 2002 Medscape

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