The effect of dietary glycemic index and load on acne vulgaris: A systematic review

Acne is one of the most common diseases among young individuals. Controversial findings are reported about the effect of glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of the diet on acne vulgaris. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of GI and GL of diet on severity of acne.
All relevant studies on effects of GI or GL on acne published up to December 2016 were collected using PubMed, Google Scholar, Science direct, Ovid and Cochrane library.
Of 714 articles in our initial research, 6 interventional and 3 case-control studies were included.
Case-control studies revealed that patients with acne vulgaris consumed diets with a higher GI rather than control group. Intervention with a low GI diet reduced lesion counts and improved the severity of acne as well as insulin sensitivity compared with those under high GI diet.
Overall, a diet with low GI and GL could improve acne severity and inflammatory lesions.