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Review
. 2018 Aug 9;10(8):1049.
doi: 10.3390/nu10081049.

Dairy Intake and Acne Vulgaris: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 78,529 Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

Christian R Juhl  1 , Helle K M Bergholdt  2 , Iben M Miller  3 , Gregor B E Jemec  4   5 , Jørgen K Kanters  6 , Christina Ellervik  7   8   9   10
Affiliations
Review

Dairy Intake and Acne Vulgaris: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 78,529 Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults

Christian R Juhl et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

A meta-analysis can help inform the debate about the epidemiological evidence on dairy intake and development of acne. A systematic literature search of PubMed from inception to 11 December 2017 was performed to estimate the association of dairy intake and acne in children, adolescents, and young adults in observational studies. We estimated the pooled random effects odds ratio (OR) (95% CI), heterogeneity (I²-statistics, Q-statistics), and publication bias. We included 14 studies (n = 78,529; 23,046 acne-cases/55,483 controls) aged 7⁻30 years. ORs for acne were 1.25 (95% CI: 1.15⁻1.36; p = 6.13 × 10-8) for any dairy, 1.22 (1.08⁻1.38; p = 1.62 × 10-3) for full-fat dairy, 1.28 (1.13⁻1.44; p = 8.23 × 10-5) for any milk, 1.22 (1.06⁻1.41; p = 6.66 × 10-3) for whole milk, 1.32 (1.16⁻1.52; p = 4.33 × 10-5) for low-fat/skim milk, 1.22 (1.00⁻1.50; p = 5.21 × 10-2) for cheese, and 1.36 (1.05⁻1.77; p = 2.21 × 10-2) for yogurt compared to no intake. ORs per frequency of any milk intake were 1.24 (0.95⁻1.62) by 2⁻6 glasses per week, 1.41 (1.05⁻1.90) by 1 glass per day, and 1.43 (1.09⁻1.88) by ≥2 glasses per day compared to intake less than weekly. Adjusted results were attenuated and compared unadjusted. There was publication bias (p = 4.71 × 10-3), and heterogeneity in the meta-analyses were explained by dairy and study characteristics. In conclusion, any dairy, such as milk, yogurt, and cheese, was associated with an increased OR for acne in individuals aged 7⁻30 years. However, results should be interpreted with caution due to heterogeneity and bias across studies.

Keywords: acne; dairy; meta-analysis; milk; yogurt.

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Conflict of interest statement

G.B.E.J. has received honoraria from AbbVie, MSD, Pfizer, Pierre-Fabre, and UCB for participation on advisory boards, and grants from Abbvie, Actelion, Janssen-Cilag, Leo Pharma, Novartis, and Regeneron for participation as an investigator, and received speaker honoraria from AbbVie, Galderma, Leo Pharma, and MSD. He has furthermore received unrestricted research grants from AbbVie and Leo Pharma. He has received travel grants from AbbVie, Celgene, Desitin, and Novartis. GBEJ’s sponsors were not involved in any parts of this article (design, conduct, collection, management, analysis, interpretation, preparation, approval, review, decision to submit). H.K.M.B. has received a grant from the Danish Dairy Research Foundation. None of the funding agencies had any role in the design, analysis, or writing of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram for meta-analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Meta-analysis of dairy intake and acne vulgaris: individual studies. The figure shows the individual studies and the unadjusted pooled random effect estimate from the meta-analysis of dairy intake and acne vulgaris. I2(%): I-square heterogeneity expressed as percentage. p-value(het): p-value from Cochran’s Q-statistic assessing heterogeneity. D + L: DerSimonian and Laird pooled random effects estimates. See Table 1 for references.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Meta-analyses of dairy intake and acne vulgaris: summary estimates. The figure shows the unadjusted pooled random effects estimates from each of the meta-analyses, which can be found in the supplementary material. I2(%): I-square heterogeneity expressed as percentage. p-value(het): p-value from Cochran’s Q-statistic assessing heterogeneity.
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