Vitamin B6 and Acne
Besides vitamin B5, vitamin B6 has also been touted as a helpful vitamin for clear skin. However, less research exists detailing how B6 helps in the fight against acne, and widely conflicting reports regarding its effectiveness have kept vitamin B6 from becoming a highly recommendable acne treatment. If you’re already using B5 to keep your skin oil under control, you may want to avoid high levels of vitamin B6.
Similar to B5, vitamin B6 plays an important role in metabolism. Various studies have shown correlation between acne symptoms and decreased levels of B6 in the body. Some of these studies have also shown that acne remission followed supplementation with B6. However, there are conflicting reports on the subject, with other research showing increased breakouts resulting from vitamin B6 supplementation. These breakouts occurred even in patients who were not prone to acne (and outside the most common acne age groups), and later ceased when supplementation with B6 ended (the same correlation has been found with B12). Vitamin B6 can also compete with vitamin B5 for absorption in the body, potentially making B5 acne treatment less effective. As such, it’s usually a bad idea to combine B5 acne treatment with high levels of B6.
The conflicting reports make B6 a supplement you should take with caution if you’re looking for clear skin. To be sure, maintaining a healthy, natural level of vitamin B6 is always a good idea. However, using high doses of B6 to manage acne is unlikely to be as consistently effective as vitamin B5, and in some cases may actually work against you.
