Can DIM and Indole-3-Carbinol Cure Your Acne?

If you’re an active reader of acne forums or scour the internet daily hunting for home remedies, then you’ve almost certainly heard of DIM (3,3′-Diindolylmethane).

It’s one of several by-products produced during the digestion of indole-3-carbinol (I3C), which is itself a by-product of the glucosinolate glucobrassicin found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussel sprouts and cabbage.

DIM and I3C have been on a rampage since approximately 2000, gaining fame for detoxifying high estrogen levels and supposedly curing endless hormonal problems ranging from depression to breast cancer.

Clear skin is another of DIM’s supposed parlour tricks, as this supplement is spreading like wildfire in the acne community, particularly the popular Estroblock brand, a patented formula combining both 13C-derived DIM and I3C itself. Women with hormonal acne absolutely adore Estroblock, reporting completely clear skin within just weeks.

We’ve already discussed the greatness of cruciferous vegetables for acne, and DIM could be one explanation.

But there are naysayers too. There are no scientific studies testing DIM on acne directly, and there’s a furious debate as to whether controlling estrogen improves acne at all.

DIM is a supplement that’s shrouded with mystery, and today we will finally solve that mystery. 

 

The testimonials are excellent

Firstly, we may be lacking any official studies, but we do have endless acne testimonials spread far and wide on the internet.

The good news? Those testimonials are some of the most ecstatic I’ve seen. One woman said “my skin is the clearest it’s been since I was ten years old“, while another enjoyed “skin 100 times calmer“. It’s these delighted women who are recommending I3C/DIM on acne forums constantly.

There’s a general theme of relatively little benefit for one month, probably because estrogen detoxification takes time, but followed by a sudden reduction in every form of acne after just two months.

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Even so, one woman enjoyed “rapid, dramatic clearing”, and those stories are far from uncommon. The biggest benefits of DIM come for classic female hormonal acne; red and painful pimples, and often cysts on the jawline, neck and mouth area.

More negatively, one annoyed user dismissed DIM/I3C as “pure crap; made me break out much worse”. There’s also side effect stories, particularly typical hormonal ones like mood swings, headaches and fatigue.

In one study, a woman took Estroblock for 2 months and suddenly developed blurry eyes and a pounding headache. She discontinued the supplement, and as if by magic, her worrying symptoms faded and disappeared into nothingness after eight weeks. It’s clear that DIM isn’t an automatic magical saviour.

But overall, the balance of acne tales tilts resoundingly towards the positive. Acne-prone women across the globe are convinced that it’s a miracle. 

 

Does the scientific reasoning stand up?

Here’s where the situation gets complicated. DIM’s most famous power is easily lowering estrogen, and that’s supposedly how it helps acne patients too. Estrogen is a non-androgenic sex hormone, the main sex hormone of women, but while a man’s lifeblood is testosterone, he also has small amounts of estrogen for mood control, blood pressure, etc.

Everyone needs some estrogen, but today, there’s a new and deadly disease. It’s called estrogen dominance – levels so high that they overpower your other hormones.

Diet has a role in estrogen dominance (sugar, wheat consumption), but the biggest and most underestimated problem is xenoestrogens, hidden chemicals lurking in our environment which mimic estrogen and bind to its bodily receptors. Whether in shampoo, BPA, deodorants, vinyl shower curtains or tap water, this tide of xenoestrogens explains why so many women (and so many men) have sky high estrogen…

…and it’s this modern day estrogen overload which supposedly explains the amazing success of DIM. 

Neither DIM nor I3C are hormones themselves, but the duo assists your liver in metabolising hormones more efficiently by upregulating the CYP1A2 enzyme. Like most toxins, estrogen is metabolised in three phases. DIM assists in phase 1, when the liver breaks down excessive estrogen into three possible metabolites: 2, 4, or 16-hydroxyestrogen.

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2-hydroxyestrogen is the most beneficial by-product, being responsible for estrogen’s benefits like a healthy heart and sharper brain functioning. But the other two metabolites cause all the unhealthy symptoms. 4-hydroxyestrogen dabbles in accelerated cancer cell growth (study), while 16-hydroxyestrogen does the same but also throws in zinc deficiency, depression, cysts, magnesium deficiency, infertility and osteoporosis.

DIM’s skill is in shifting your liver’s estrogen metabolites towards the healthy 2-hydroxy form, and in lowering your overall estrogen levels.

The whole I3C craze began with this 1997 study, where 7 men and 10 men took a small 6-7mg of indole-3-carbinol per KG of bodyweight. Urinary clearance of estrogen shot up in both sexes, and since then, I3C’s reputation has been solidified by this, this and this study.

But there’s a huge questions that few people are asking…

 

Does controlling estrogen even help acne?

According to a 2011 review on hormones and acne, it’s actually estrogen deficiencies that cause acne. One of the individual studies it analysed found below average estrogen levels in 1000 North Indian acne patients, while the review’s authors commented that “when a woman’s estrogen levels decline, as they do just before the beginning of a menstrual cycle, acne may worsen”.

It’s not the death knell for DIM yet though, as this is just one study. Other experiments on the estrogen-acne question are severely limited, and moreover, there’s a clear scientific theory in our favour. Women with estrogen dominance are well known to have less progesterone, a hormone which helps to control the 5-alpha reductase enzyme.

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This hormonal player manufactures all DHT in the human body, via conversion from the baseline building blocks of testosterone. Suppressing progesterone is well known to increase DHT, and DHT is a far stronger hormone than testosterone at stimulating the sebaceous glands and turning your skin into an oil slick.

More importantly, women’s androgen receptors are ten times more receptive to DHT than men’s, including in the sebaceous glands. A slight rise in DHT could cause a monstrous acne outbreak in women, but barely a microscopic pimple in men.

Therefore, if high estrogen leads to even a slight shift towards DHT at the expense of testosterone, with progesterone and 5ar as the middlemen, it could solve the mystery of Estroblock’s acne benefits once and for all.

It’s an unproven theory for now, but a very probably mechanism in my view. Additionally, we discussed earlier how both 4 and 16-hydroxyestrogen (the dangerous metabolites) are strong carcinogens. Well, a top five factor behind cancer cells is free radical overload, and that happens to be a top five factor behind acne.

This study found that 4-hyroxyestrogen generated large amounts of free radicals in the bloodstream, whereas 2-hydroxyestrogen didn’t do anything. Free radicals can trigger acne by depleting your precious antioxidant stores, including the vital vitamin E.

It doesn’t end there, as in this 2012 study, 16-hydroxyestrogen was linked to higher inflammatory chemicals like TNF-a. This 2004 study found ten times higher 2-hydroxyestrogen levels in the urine of rheumatoid arthritis patients, a classic inflammatory disease, while 16-hydroxyestrogen was ten times higher. Note that chronic inflammation is the number one cause of acne worldwide.

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This 2007 review found that when high estrogen and inflammation are detected simultaneously, 16-hydroxyestrogen is often to blame. Last but not least, the friendly 2-hydroxyestrogen has multiple benefits for acne, as proven by the 2005 study above.

 

So where does Estroblock stand?

While the consequences of lowering overall estrogen remain cloudy, Estroblock could easily clear a chunk of your acne by improving the metabolisation of estrogen.

We don’t have any rock solid evidence yet, but this theory meshes well with the reductions in hormonal acne that numerous women experience. Additionally, indole-3-carbinol has multiple anti-inflammatory powers with no connection to estrogen, such as lowering NF-KappaB, the body’s master transcriptor of inflammatory chemicals. NF-KappaB controls some of the most notorious immune system agents for acne, including neutrophils, TNF-a, and interleukin-6.

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I3C also inhibits a second master molecule in inflammation called cyclogenase-2 (COX-2). and preliminary evidence suggests that DIM lowers the mTor pathway, a mysterious biological system controlling many aspects of acne such as sebum production, skin cell differentiation, and keratin production. We can’t confirm this power yet…

…but what we can confirm is that DIM has plenty of plausible mechanisms for reducing acne.

DIM is most likely to work if you’re a woman with rampaging hormones – acne during periods, crazy mood swings, inexplicable fatigue which even the healthiest diet can’t fix. Look for cystic acne around the mouth, chin and jawline as well.

Also, we’ve mostly been talking about female acne today, but estrogen dominance is an equally big problem for men. We are all exposed to far too many toxic xenoestrogens. Estroblock might be particularly useful if you’re a man in the big city, the hub of estrogenic chemicals.

To become an expert on all the science related to estrogen and acne, click here.

 

The optimal DIM/I3C supplement?

Estroblock is the number 1 DIM/I3C supplement among acne patients, and its reputation is well deserved. You’ll see a claim on Estroblock’s website that their competitors are poorly absorbed and that Estroblock is 500% stronger. We can’t verify these claims, but there is a patented form of DIM called Bio-Response DIM (BR-DIM).

This super-DIM was found to be 150% better absorbed in human beings than other DIM forms, and according to grand announcements at scientific conferences, there are numerous behind the scenes experiments simmering away.

It’s likely then, that Estroblock uses that form. Moreover, it was Estroblock that all the women noticed fantastic benefits from, so it clearly does something. Here’s the amazon link: Estroblock Pro Triple Strength.

That being said, BioResponse DIM and Estroblock are both recent inventions. The standout studies of the 1990s all tested standard DIM and indole-3-carbinol. Therefore, I would also recommend this Smoky Mountain Naturals DIM, a brand which is totally free from harsh additives like magnesium stearate, corn, soybeans and so on.

Another potential route is whole indole-3-carbinol. This breaks down into DIM during digestion, and some acne fanatics theorise that other metabolites are created in the stomach alongside DIM, more mysterious yet equally beneficial metabolites. What’s more, the amazing studies on I3C are much older than those on DIM, since it was the original compound to be discovered.

The best way to experiment is with this Thorne Research Indole-3-Carbinol.

 

Don’t forget about food!

Finally, there’s a point which many DIM enthusiasts miss: that indole-3-carbinol and DIM occur naturally in green vegetables. Supplements may be totally unnecessary, because broccoli and Brussel sprouts are both loaded with glucosinolate glucobrassicin, the precursor compounds.

Broccoli itself already has estrogen-lowering studies to its name. In fact, it’s favoured by male athletes and bodybuilders for lowering estrogen and preventing its competition with testosterone. So unless there’s another hidden molecule in broccoli, it’s clear that indole-3-carbinol still works well in those lower quantities.

If Estroblock is too costly for you, yet you’re convinced that wacky estrogen levels are your arch acne enemy, then simply rearrange your diet to accommodate broccoli, kale or cabbage.

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With antioxidants, sulforaphane and vitamin C aplenty, they’re a no-brainer to eat anyway. These vegetables will also provide extra health benefits compared to Estroblock, including cancer prevention. If you really want to crack down on estrogen, then you can guzzle down some oranges and berries too. These fruits contain an anti-estrogenic compound called calcium-d-glucarate, which accumulates in the jelly portion of berries.

Studies are currently scarce with CDG, but this one on rats found a 23% reduction in estrogen compared to placebo. Like cruciferous vegetables, oranges and berries are cream of the crop in hormone optimising circles.

 

Verdict – the final judgement on DIM

Here’s the truth: you should NOT fall for the supplement companies hyping DIM supplements to religious levels. They pretend to be awestruck, but in reality, they’re desperate for your hard earned money. A common claim is that indole-3-carbiol is behind nearly all of broccoli’s health benefits. That’s absolutely false, because sulforaphane is the real broccoli saviour.

The superior absorption claims may be accurate, but Estroblock.com contains a ton of invalidated information about preventing cancer. That’s specifically how it’s marketed. Yes, unhealthy estrogen metabolites can trigger explosive cancer cell proliferation but Estroblock alone won’t automatically be enough to make a large scale difference.

Plenty of women speak of acne-clearing miracles, but there’s no foolproof way to judge for this. So don’t blindly fall for the cancer-curing hype – if that’s your goal, then you’d be better off eating broccoli, because it combines both I3C, sulforaphane and other antioxidants.

What I do believe is that Estroblock’s ingredients have acne-clearing powers. Out of all the herbal supplements and plant compounds I’ve researched, Estroblock’s ingredients easily have some of the happiest user reviews. There’s disappointed stories as well, but the good ones are truly great. Moreover, there’s a plausible mechanism in lowering toxic estrogen metabolites.

I won’t make an official Supernatural Acne Treatment endorsement, as the science remains murky. If you could only take one supplement, you’d be much better off with zinc or vitamin E.

But after sifting through every piece of evidence available, my hunch is that if you’re a woman with spiralling out of control hormones, then Estroblock might cure your acne. Here’s the amazon link: Estroblock Pro Triple Strength.

 

Follow the guidelines on liver support

Early on, we discussed how many Estroblock users complain of side effects such as headaches, mood swings or even fresh explosions of acne. 

Well, the true cause isn’t DIM itself, but rather that your liver isn’t equipped to use it properly. Phase 1 detoxification is when DIM breaks down the estrogen metabolites, but after that, phase 2 kicks in: when antioxidants reduce the three hydroxyestrogens further, into less harmless states.

If you lack the glutathione to process these metabolites, then phase 2 will fail. Instead, the three metabolites will be converted into highly reactive molecules.

How do you erase most of Estroblock’s side effects then? It’s simple – boost your glutathione production.

The simplest solution is to increase your selenium intake, by eating two Brazil nuts a day. Magnesium and glycine will also work wonders.

The key point is this – NEVER treat Estroblock as a single magic pill. That applies to all supplements, but I want to particularly emphasise it here. With DIM or indole-3-carbinol, it’s critical to support the wider strength of your detoxication systems, and this article on glutathione will teach you how.

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Thanks for reading!