It’s the health craze that took the world by storm. In 2019, drinking raw celery juice on an empty stomach was recommended for energy, migraines, efficient digestion and brain sharpness alike.
Celebrities such as Sylvester Stallone have given their endorsement, and by May 2019, the celery juice hashtag was used over 133,000 times on Instagram. The founding father of the movement claims that based on his social media following, 200 million people are drinking celery juice, and this will soon be billions.
Celery juice became so popular that the supermarket price tripled in Australia. Poor harvests were partially to blame as well, but the pattern repeated in every corner of the developed world. Prices rose by 100% in Canada, by 250% in California, and local farmers market reported with a satisfied smile that celery was flying off the shelves like never before.
In 2018, celery was 11% of all vegetables juiced and now, it’s probably higher. Eventually of course, celery juice caught the eye of acne-clearing enthusiasts, and testimonials are everywhere, on youtube and forums.
Like kale before it, it sounds simple yet strangely alluring, like an amazing revelation that the answer has been right in front of you all along. So is celery juice an acne fad worth following?
Celery juice – a timeless natural miracle?
Celery juice has always existed. Tales are everywhere of kindly Grandmas pulling bottles out of their aprons and denying all laws about the size of pockets.
However, the recent craze kicked off with a guy called Anthony Williams, AKA the medical medium. He claims that one fateful day as a four year old child, the Spirit of Compassion entered his mind, and told him that his perfectly healthy grandmother had lung cancer.
It turned out to be true, and fortunately, this was a friendly spirit who also revealed to him a great secret: celery juice. In 1975, still a child, Williams healed a family friend’s troublesome back pain, and has maintained contact with the Spirit Of Compassion ever since. He has released four books, most recently Liver Rescue in October 2018, and has his own unique set of theories for acne.
Supposedly, the biggest cause of liver problems today is streptococcus bacteria. These infections are running wild thanks to toxins, and a diet filled with eggs, dairy, vegetable oil, corn and soy.
According to Williams, when the liver is overburdened, streptococcus breaks free and travels to the skin. Immune system killer cells simply bounce off it, and sebum (oil) production cranks up, in a furious, last ditch attempt to trap the bacteria. Alas, it doesn’t succeed: the crafty strepococcus breaks through the outer layer of skin, creating all the acne you witness in the mirror.
The liver is the key to all this, the star which all acne planets orbit around. Celery juice supposedly has the power to wash away its stored toxins in a great cleansing flood, making it inhospitable to streptococcus. This may aggravate acne briefly as the bloodstream fills with chemicals, a “healing crisis”, but ultimately leave your body cleaner and healthier.
Secondly, celery juice supposedly contain unique mineral salt clusters, unstudied and unnoticed by scientists, which melt away the cell membrane of streptococcus on contact. White blood cells use these salt clusters as both a shield and a weapon; they’re the key to celery juice’s magic. They’re subgroups of sodium bound together as one, infused with celery’s unique pytonutrients.
Among celery juice converts, these tales are fairly accepted. The momentum is unstoppable; some report losing 20 pounds while others have gained the gift of compassion.
The internet’s main recommendation is 16oz of celery juice, every day, first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach. However, if the flavour is too strong, it is acceptable to add one slice of apple or cucumber (but no lemon). Organic is a must, to dodge pesticides, and eating breakfast afterwards is fine as long as you wait 15 minutes.
The truth about this theory
There are numerous completely true facts about acne which you could dress up in fantastical language, but still not be wrong. For example: the ever-mounting burden of unnatural toxins, unseen to the naked eye of mortal man, is draining our skin of its life energy. Yet the bright orange glow of carrots is a guiding message from nature to eat them, and by following your ancient instincts, your god-given glow and vitality will be reawakened.
Stripped down to the raw scientific facts, this is true: carotenoids in carrots enrich your skin tone. However, the celery juice hype really is a stretch of the imagination.
Neither the salt clusters nor streptococcus connection are conclusively proven to be false. Propionibacterium acne (now renamed cutibacterium acnes) is the main acne bacteria, overgrowing in oxygen-deprived clogged skin pores, and triggering a harsh inflammatory response. Recently though, a whole cast of shadowy characters has emerged, including friendly bacteria like lactobacillus rhamnosus and staphylococcus epidermidis.
Therefore, I wouldn’t rule out a secret role for streptococcus, and higher levels of the s. pyogenes strain have been detected in acne patients. It binds to the skin using adhesins and is occasionally linked to nasty skin infections. P.acnes even targets it for elimination using special free fatty acids. Scientists have no idea how pyogenes affects acne, but decades ago, the same was true for p.acnes.
The problem is that everything is so specific. The deadly hospital bug staphylococcus aureus occasionally embarks on an epic voyage from the skin to the kidneys (study), but the celery juice theory is uncertainty piled onto uncertainty. Sebum cranks up because of insulin and IGF-1 rich foods like cheese, not to trap escaped bacteria like a cave explorer trapped behind a waterfall.
The wildly hyped salt clusters don’t have a shred of evidence to their name. Yes, unique compounds are discovered all the time, like punicalagin in pomegranate, but this is just guesswork. Celery juice is surprisingly salty, as newcomers to the fad often notice, and phytonutrients like luteolin could be bound up in them, but the real reason the salt clusters are “undiscovered and unstudied by scientists” is probably that they don’t exist.
The internet could be correct about celery juice; there’s traces of truth. Crazy acne facts have been discovered before, like turmeric reducing oily skin, but the connections all require a massive leap of faith.
Tales from the acne underground
The great news is that we have real world guinea pigs already. Millions of them, in fact. The wild popularity of celery juice means that positive stories are everywhere. There’s plenty of old classics saying that nothing worked and all hope was lost, until one day, a celery juice merchant came along and at long last their acne was finally cleared, after just three weeks.
The healing crisis pops up sometimes, a burst of red and angry acne which depresses people, followed by clearer horizons almost immediately afterwards. There are pictures too, which you can see with your own eyes; celery juice has seriously cleared some people’s skin. Their skin tone has got brighter and it isn’t just the normal revolving door cycle of pimples. Their whole skin looks calmer and less inflamed.
Elsewhere though, others talk of an initial improvement followed by a slide back into the acne doldrums. Some claim that acne worsened after two weeks, with persistent excema to boot. Some outbreaks are severe enough to cast a seriously dark cloud.
Then there’s side effects, most commonly digestive chaos, ranging from stomach aches to sprinting for the toilet. Such tales are all over the internet. Some resolve quickly, but some do not. Celery juice is hyperconcentrated, and that gives it hyper potential, but also hyper risk.
The big question, of course, is whether the lucky people made other changes that could truly be responsible.
People might have been so busy juicing celery that they had no time for sugary, artificially coloured breakfast cereal. Their celery juice mission likely coincided with a more determined healthy period, rather than lying on the sofa with pizza boxes everywhere.
Then there’s its impact on you. A little extra vegetable goodness might be a drop in the ocean if you’re already an acne disciple, whereas the average American’s antioxidant ship is only kept afloat by mugs of coffee daily. Alternatively though, anyone dedicated enough to try celery juice is probably a skincare maniac anyway, so maybe their diets were acne-friendly and celery juice did have exceptional powers.
There are many variables, but overall, celery juice’s testimonials are positive, yet not stunning.
It boils down to this: people’s acne has improved, but there’s nothing to suggest that celery juice has magical, mystical powers beyond any other fruit or vegetable’s.
Does celery juice still have potential?
Celery juice still has less fantastical, more respectable acne powers though. Its main claim to fame is easily enhancing blood flow to the skin, using an overwhelming dose of natural nitrates, which break down into nitric oxide and dilate your capillaries.
Furthermore, celery contains two bonus compounds called 3-n-butyl phthalide (3NBP) and sedanolide which are also linked to freely flowing blood vessels. The results could be a brighter glow than ever before, thanks to enhanced nutrient delivery and increased oxygen flow (tissue oxygenation) on an hour by hour, minute by minute basis, which is basic stuff, but extremely important for skin vitality.
Take the colourful skin tone of a hard session of exercise, divide it by ten, and apply it to your face across your whole day – a subtle but significant effect, the kind which will get strangers wondering what your secret is.
I already recommend eating raw celery stalks for this, and celery juice has the bonus of hyperconcentration. It proves nothing, but several before and after photos on the internet have exactly the sunny glow you’d expect.
Celery is weak for classic nutrients like vitamin C, but contains special antioxidants like apigenin, linked to slashed inflammation. Its content of the anti-inflammatory luteolin is wildly exaggerated, ranking similarly to red grapes and spinach, but it compliments the other acne-clearing antioxidants like quercetin nicely.
The wild card is the unique compounds 3NBP and sedanolide. Luteolin is heavily researched, but these two are like a fuzzy planet 1000 light years away which is only visible with the highest powered telescope. Anything is possible for acne, particularly when in a hyperconcentrated juice.
It costs too much!
However, there’s one great practical reason to avoid this fad. Even forum posters who have loved the results from celery juice had to give up due to its sky high cost.
The classic recommendation is 16oz of celery juice will likely take a whole bunch per day, probably more. Because celery is so vital to buy organic, as one of the most-pesticide contaminated vegetables, this could end up costing $50 monthly! There are far better uses for your acne-clearing funds.
Now, if the unique salt clusters were real, and their effectiveness at removing streptococcus bacteria, then we could overlook this. It would be the only source of this ancient secret, communicated by the Spirit of Compassion. However, as it stands, celery juice is promising, but not uniquely unique; celery has its own unique compounds, but not to a greater extent than other vegetables.
Maybe you have gold teeth, a gold car, even a gold body, but for normal people, your money would be better spent on a box of raspberries and a high dosage vitamin C supplement.
The verdict
Celery juice has potential, but there’s no legitimate reason why the eye of the internet hype machine should have focused on it above other vegetables.
It’s a clear example of how an acne fad can snowball. It started with the fantastical salt cluster claims, which caught a handful of people’s eyes. Some great testimonials, from people who might have been completely vegetable deprived in the first place, joined forces with the love of all things natural. Then the celebrity endorsements flooded in, youtube logs arrived, and celery juice went through the stratosphere.
Unlike the turmeric fad though, celery juice is just not worth it. Sure, it’s within the realm of diet, which takes priority over topical treatments (still great as a bonus acne avenue), but one tiny alteration is rarely the way forward.
Theoretically, you could fix your skin if you seriously deficient in antioxidants and started eating a bowl of strawberries daily. Or if your selenium stores were empty and the acne-clearing monkey of wisdom teleported from the rainforest and handed you some Brazil nuts, but celery juice lacks this potential.
If there’s one possibility, it’s a hyper concentrated way to boost your blood’s flow and skin’s glow.
Thanks for reading!