Why fish oil is your friend for acne-prone skin

So first up, fish oil 101. Fish oils are a type of omega-3 fat. There are three types of omega 3 oils: DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid), EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid)  and DPA (Docosapentaenoic Acid). They’re called Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) because they’re essential to ingest from food or supplements, as our body doesn’t make them. Even more, our brain takes up approximately 80% of the supplemented EFAs (because DHA is the main structural component of the brains’ cerebral cortex), so the skin is the last place to benefit from the oils. So supplementation is super important, to ensure your skin gets its fair share too!

There are a few different types of EFAs, including omega-6s and omega 3s, but for the purpose of this article, we are going to focus on the latter, due to their skin-health promoting properties! Omega-3s are only found in oily fish like cod, herring, salmon or sardine, edible fish, breast milk and supplements. As well as being fantastic for skin (which we’ll learn about below), omega 3s have benefits such as being neuroprotective, aiding in memory function, helping with healthy vision, and of course, being highly anti-inflammatory.

So why is fish oil your friend (even more so if you have acne-prone skin)?

• It improves sebum quality

Congested, acne-prone skin arises when thick and viscous sebum gets trapped in hair follicles on our skin. Sebum quality is super important for skin hydration and lubrication – it should be free flowing and not too sticky. Because sticky sebum = congestion = pimples.

The solution to sebum quality is quite simple. We can improve our sebum via, you guessed it, essential fatty acid (EFA) supplementation. As we learnt above, EFAs are omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids. It’s important they are found in the body in the correct ratio, as omega-3s are anti-inflammatory, yet omega-6s can become pro-inflammatory when consumed in excess. The standard Western diet is heavily focused on omega-6s, so the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 can be as high as 50:1, when it should in fact be 4:1 or less! EFA supplementation, using high-quality omega-3s, can correct this imbalance. This leads to an anti-inflammatory state, with a positive impact on our sebum quality and skin health.

• It reduces inflammation

Inflammation occurs through a series of complex reactions within the body, showing up as pain, swelling, redness or heat. So the tender, red acne or the hot, red eczema patches you may experience on your skin is your body’s way of expressing inflammation. And if you’re stressed about your skin, more inflammation occurs in your body, as cortisol (our body’s stress hormone) is pro-inflammatory and creates thicker and stickier sebum.

So what’s a girl to do? It’s really important to consider nutrition – via food and supplementation. Dietary intakes of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids either inhibit or encourage inflammation in your body. With so much omega-6 present in our Western diets, it makes sense to try and counteract the pro-inflammatory omega-6s (when consumed in excess) with anti-inflammatory omega-3s. So oily fish and high quality fish oil is your friend! Essential fatty acids, specifically the active ingredient EPA, helps to rid the cells of inflammatory arachidonic acid (which happens as a byproduct of omega-6). It changes the cell and its function for the better, and reduces chronic inflammation produced by a high omega-6 or arachidonic acid picture.

• It provides nutrition to corneocytes

Corneocytes are skin cells that create the skin barrier. Their job is to keep the bad guys – aka pathogens – out, whilst keeping good quality nutrients in. They are vital to healthy skin as they form the important lipid bilayer. If this barrier is impaired, we lose water and other skin nutrients (known as trans-epidermal water loss). This is commonly seen in eczema and other inflammatory skin conditions.

So how do we get our corneocytes in tip-top shape? EFAs are critical here, as they help corneocytes function properly, whilst reducing excess skin shedding, and helping prevent trans-epidermal water loss. Essential fatty acids are needed to make up the membranes of all our cells, but especially our skin cells. They also provide some of the ingredients needed for our skin cells to create the moisturising contents within them. So many people’s skin could be better if they just had the fundamentals that the skin cells need to work properly!

So as you can see, fish oils are integral to healthy skin function. But fish oils ain’t just fish oils, girl. It’s one area of your health where money matters. Cheap, bulk buckets of fish oil are likely oxidised and rancid, which when ingested creates even more inflammation for your skin. High quality (and yes, more expensive) fish oils have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and are assessed to a high purity for heavy metal contamination. Concentration is key when it comes to getting a predictable effect with fish oils - to learn more you can check out my free Nutrition for Skin Masterclass which goes deeply into this topic (check out around 20 minutes in).

The need for a high quality and high concentration retail fish oil is why we went down the path of creating our very own Acne & Eczema Clinic E/FA Pure, tested to the most stringent methods for contaminants, and providing one of the strongest concentration oils on the market. Click here to learn more.

Here’s to glowing clear skin.

Love, Em (Naturopath, Founder, Skin-thusiast)