The Gut-Skin Axis: How your Gut Impacts your Skin

Gut HealthSkin Health
Written By Erica Hartwick

Skin concerns, no matter what they are, are not fun — they can be itchy, irritating, painful, hot, and IDK about you, but frustrating, too.

All of that to say, our skin is pretty incredible. It actually has its own microbiome. Pretty neat, huh?

Our skin’s microbiome plays a role in protecting us from external threats, pathogens, and infection, in communicating with the immune system, and in modulating inflammation, among other things!

Our skin microbiome, similar to our gut’s, contains different species of bacteria, and even fungi and viruses.

There is something referred to as the gut-skin axis, which reflects the interconnectedness of these two biomes, which is actually what we’re going to be digging into, here.

In this article, we’re going to be investigating the skin-gut connection further, to uncover how the gut could actually contribute to the development of these common skin concerns.

Common Skin Issues Related to the Gut

There are a number of common skin concerns that may have roots in our gut health! Whether or not the gut is the only contributing factor to these conditions (many of these conditions are multi-faceted), it can have a major role in their development.

Here are some of the skin concerns that can be related to the gut:

  • acne

  • rosacea

  • eczema

  • psoriasis

  • tinea versicolor

  • perioral dermatitis

  • urticaria

If you’re experiencing any of the above-mentioned skin concerns — whether or not you’re experiencing any obvious digestive concerns — it could warrant some further investigating into your gut health.

How the Gut can Contribute to Skin Issues

While we’re still learning about the connection between the gut microbiome and our skin health, there are some correlations we’ve been able to identify between the two. Let’s dig into a few here:

1. Leaky Gut and Inflammation

One way our gut health can impact our skin health is through something called “leaky gut” (also known as intestinal permeability), and inflammation. Skin concerns like acne, rosacea, and eczema are conditions that can be influenced by inflammation in the body.

How does leaky gut play a role, you ask?

One of the roles of our intestinal lining is to act as a barrier between the contents of our intestinal tract, and our bloodstream.

When our intestinal lining is compromised, contents from our intestines (like undigested food particles, proteins, pathogens, metabolites, metabolic waste, etc.), can actually “leak” into our bloodstream; into general circulation.

It’s this process that can contribute to inflammation systemically: when our immune system recognizes foreign substances flowing around in our bloodstream (in this case, the substances that came from our intestines), our immune response becomes activated, resulting in inflammation.

It’s this systemic inflammation that can contribute to skin concerns such as the ones mentioned above: acne, rosacea, eczema. Even psoriasis can be influenced by intestinal permeability!

2. Dysbiosis and your Skin

Dysbiosis, AKA an imbalance in a microbiome (in this case, the gut microbiome specifically), may play a role in the development of different skin concerns. Dysbiosis can refer to both the overgrowth of opportunistic (”bad”) species or the insufficiency of beneficial, commensal flora.

In the case of atopic dermatitis for example, there may be correlations between low levels of commensal flora such as Bifidobacterium and Bacteroides, and the presence of AD.

Specific infections as well, such as in the case of an H Pylori overgrowth, may contribute to certain skin conditions. There is some literature that has found correlations between H Pylori infections, and the presence of rosacea, finding that after 10 weeks of H Pylori overgrowth eradication via antibiotic therapy, instances of rosacea were decreased in participants by as much as 97.2%, versus participants who didn’t eradicate H Pylori.

This correlation needs to be investigated further, as there is conflicting literature, but it’s an interesting connection!

3. Stress, your Gut, and your Skin


Stress stemming from the gut may also be a contributor in skin conditions like acne.

Infections and imbalances in the gut, such as bacterial overgrowth, a parasitic infection, or candidiasis, are chemical stressors on the body. When our body is in a stressed state — and our stress system is activated — cortisol levels (one of our major stress hormones) increase. When cortisol levels increase, sebum production and secretion may increase as a result, leading to an overproduction of oils on the skin.

This overproduction of sebum as a result of stress, can contribute to the development of acne!

How to Support your Gut-Skin Axis

As it relates specifically to the gut-skin axis, here are a few things you can do to support your skin health, by supporting your gut:

  • Support a diverse, rich, resilient microbiome through consuming a wide variety of plant foods (it’s fibers from these plant foods that actually feed the bugs in our microbiome, helping them to proliferate). Aim for ~30+ different plant foods on a weekly basis, and approx ~6 cups of a variety of plant foods per day (ideally, mostly vegetables!).

  • Be mindful of foods that can promote inflammation (like highly refined sugars and oils, processed, refined carbohydrates, fried foods, etc.), and foods that can irritate the gut (like those just mentioned, as well as artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, alcohol, caffeine, etc).

  • Prioritize anti-inflammatory foods, like dark leafy greens, turmeric, ginger, fatty fish (like SMASH fish: salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, halibut), etc. You can even incorporate gut-soothing teas like chamomile, marshmallow root, ginger, fennel, and licorice.

  • Incorporate stress management practices into your day-to-day, as well as actively reducing stressors (ie. saying no, putting boundaries in place, asking for help, taking things off your plate, seeking professional support). Things like taking walks in nature, reading, journaling, dancing, practicing breathwork and meditation, etc. are all great for helping reduce feelings of stress, that can impact your gut!

  • Investigate your gut health further! If you suspect you may be struggling with an imbalance in your gut, whether it’s because you present with skin issues, or because you experience more ‘obvious’ digestive issues.. it could be worth digging deeper to see what’s going on.

 

In this article, we just started to dip our toes into the connection between our gut microbiome and common skin concerns.

Let's recap what we just covered as it relates to the gut-skin connection:

  • the gut may be a major contributor in common skin conditions, such as acne, psoriasis, eczema, urticaria, perioral dermatitis, tinea versicolor, etc.

  • the gut may play a role through the gut microbiome (especially in the case of dysbiosis, or an imbalance), through leaky gut, inflammation, and initiation of the stress response

  • to support your skin health — look to your gut, and support optimal digestive function and microbiome health


If you would like to get support with navigating your gut health further to see if there may be underlying imbalances or infections and to see how you can better optimize your gut health (for great skin!) — then I'd love to invite you to check out my program, The Gut Restore Method, to see if it might be a good fit for you.

The Gut Restore Method is a comprehensive 1:1 program, where I help folks restore their gut, recharge their energy, and nourish their nervous system via a root-cause, functional approach ✨

You can learn more about it here.

 
 
Erica Hartwick http://www.bigcatcreative.com
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