Bubble Tea: A Cause of Acne?
Bubble tea is undeniably the newest craze of Malaysians. You can always find long queues at bubble tea shops and new bubble tea shops are popping up at a seemingly unstoppable pace all around Malaysia. While many have jumped on the bubble tea bandwagon, how many have actually stopped to consider the health implications of drinking bubble tea on a regular basis?
Recently, I stumbled upon an article about the relationship between bubble tea and acne breakout. According to the article, bubble tea actually contains large amounts of ingredients that associated with acne breakout such as sugar, milk and tapioca.
It is common knowledge that high amounts of sugar in our diet can cause a lot of diseases and the most prominent one being diabetes. Hence, with people around the country becoming more and more health conscious, many people have tried to cut down on sugar intake. Ironically, bubble tea, which contains tons of sugar, has been skyrocketing in popularity in Malaysia. Though sugar is the leading cause of diabetes, it can also cause acne breakout. Sugar especially from rice, bread, cakes, biscuits, sweetened drinks (including bubble tea), has a high glycemic index and thus can cause spikes in blood insulin level. Increased insulin levels in turn induces our skins to secrete additional sebum. When the skin on our face secretes additional sebum, the pores on the skins of our face will be blocked by the excess sebum and this can lead to inflammation and that is how an acne breakout starts.
I’m sure that most of us were advised by our elders to drink more milk during our teenage years for better body development. Although dairy products such as milk and cheese do in fact help with our body’s growth, it can also cause serious acne issues. Personally, I love having dairy products especially milk and I drink it on a regular basis. When I was in primary and secondary school, I was plagued by some serious acne but I never thought my habit of drinking milk was the cause of it. However, when I came to Kuala Lumpur to study, I had to cut down on my milk intake to just one carton per month due to my limited budget. It was then I slowly observed that my acne was vanishing little by little. I also observed that if I drank more milk in a month than usual, my acne would relapse by the end of the month. Hence, I stopped drinking milk for two whole months and noticed my acne disappeared almost completely after the two months and only came back after i started drinking milk again. It was at this point I realized that dairy products in general, can cause acne breakouts and I personally have greatly reduced my milk intake as a result. When looking up on why dairy products can cause acne, I learned that dairy products actually contain hormones which promote sebum secretion and, as mentioned earlier, this is the way acne breakout begins.
Now that I have talked about the sugar and milk in bubble tea, what about the tapioca? To those who are unfamiliar, tapioca is the main ingredient used in the “bubbles” (those black balls) in bubble tea. Tapioca actually contains HUGE amounts of sugar and bubble tea is often filled with dozens of the “bubbles” made of tapioca. As mentioned earlier, sugar can undoubtedly cause acne breakout and bubble tea contains insane amounts of sugar if you think about how sugar is already present in the tea they use, in the “bubbles” in the tea and also the additional sugar they put in when making bubble tea.
Despite what I have said, I am not completely against the consumption of bubble tea. Personally, I think it is OK for us to indulge in our guilty pleasures once in a while. Humans have a natural sweet tooth and bubble tea, being the sweet treat it is, seems like a match made in heaven for our taste buds. However, regular consumption of bubble tea can take a toll on our health and it isn’t exactly a cheap drink as well. So, the next time you are waiting in an extremely long line outside a bubble tea shop, think about how regular consumption of bubble tea not only burns out your wallet, but more importantly, your health and you might reconsider if waiting in the line is worth your time and effort.