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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Dr. Ken Berry claims rosacea can be reversed or stopped early by changing diet, specifically moving to a fatty, meat-heavy ketogenic diet, and for himself, a mostly carnivore diet. He says eliminating sugars, grains, and industrial seed oils while increasing omega-3 fatty acids and zinc from fatty meat reduced his own rosacea, which he says is now virtually gone.
Key Points
- Berry says rosacea is highly associated with metabolic syndrome and irritable bowel symptoms, and claims this is caused by poor diet rather than the commonly cited triggers (heat, cold, sweating, exercise, hot drinks, stress, spicy food), which he says only trigger flare-ups in already inflamed skin.
- Berry says he previously used Metrogel daily and a strong steroid cream one to two times weekly, and stopped both after changing his diet.
- He claims industrial vegetable oils (canola, sunflower, safflower, soybean, peanut, and corn oil, plus shortening and margarine) drive inflammation through a high omega-6 to omega-3 ratio.
- He cites unspecified studies he says show that raising omega-3 and zinc intake improves rosacea symptoms, and notes fatty meat is rich in both.
- Genetic predisposition exists, according to Berry, but he says it does not doom a person to rosacea.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Remove all sugars, both natural and added. Remove all grains, including wheat, rice, oats, corn, amaranth, millet, and quinoa. Remove industrial vegetable oils and margarine. Eat fatty meat-heavy ketogenic or carnivore meals to increase omega-3 and zinc intake. Learn keto properly, using the "Keto 101" playlist on his channel that he mentions at the end of the video.
- Berry says he is not a dermatologist-style authority on this; he presents his experience as a family physician who had rosacea himself, and he describes the claims as his own interpretation, not established medical consensus.
- He states that people who reversed rosacea this way can share their stories in the comments, which he says show hundreds of people no longer using medication.
- He says switching to keto could save money otherwise spent on copays and creams, and describes keto as cheap, easy, safe, and natural, according to Berry.
- He describes the diet as safe and natural but does not discuss medical supervision, lab monitoring, or risks such as those associated with restrictive diets.
Bottom Line
Berry presents a diet-based approach to rosacea built on removing sugar, grains, and seed oils while eating fatty meat, but the evidence he cites is described only briefly and his personal results are anecdotal. Anyone considering such a change should discuss it with a qualified clinician, especially given medication use.
