I was talking to one of my friends about her rosacea.  She describes it as a very frustrating skin condition, because for years she's had to deal with flushing.  Her cheeks and nose get very red ,  especially when she's feeling overheated or stressed or embarrassed.

In the last few years, it's gotten worse. The redness no longer comes and goes – her nose is pretty much always red. Sometimes she also experiences flares of what we call inflammatory papules--red bumps on the cheeks that look like acne. 

These bumps may look like acne, but they're not. They're one of the signs of rosacea.   

She's started to notice that certain foods seem to make her flushing worse. These foods will sometimes even trigger a flare of the red papules. That's a common experience for most persons with rosacea, since there are multiple foods and beverages that have been reported to act as "triggers" for rosacea. 

While there are effective prescription topical and oral medications for rosacea, they don't work for everybody, and patients often have to stay on them for months at a time, or even years. That's why it's worth trying the rosacea diet for the next month to see if these changes might help.  

With the rosacea diet, you'll avoid the foods and beverages that are known to trigger flares of rosacea. You probably won't have to avoid all of these forever, but I recommend complete avoidance for the first one month. After that time, you'll reintroduce each food, one at a time, every few days, to see if you can pinpoint any foods that seem to make your rosacea worse. It helps to keep a food diary during this process. 

Why do I recommend avoidance of these particular foods? It's based on what we know of the biological mechanisms that cause rosacea. 

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WHAT CAUSES ROSACEA?

We don't know the exact reason that some people develop rosacea. It's believed to be a complex combination of changes in the nerves in the skin, blood vessels in the skin, immune system, and even possibly the microbes that live on our skin. These changes ultimately lead to over-sensitive blood vessels in the skin, which dilate (open up) in response to different triggers. Once these blood vessels dilate, you start to see redness of the skin. Over time, the blood vessels can become permanently dilated. In some people, these changes also lead to very sensitive skin and sometimes inflamed skin, in the form of red bumps or pustules. 

Based on the research that's been done into the causes of rosacea, we have some suggestions on foods that might act as triggers. (The research has also suggested some foods that may help.)