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The notion that diet causes acne--discredited, it was believed, more than 30 years ago--may be credible after all. Until 1970, when a German researcher supposedly showed that adolescents who ate chocolate had the same rate of acne as those who did not, mothers routinely told their teenaged children to avoid fudge, french fries and other rich, fatty foods as a way to avoid blemishes. A new study reported in the December 2002 issue of the Archives of Dermatology has revived the seemingly discredited diet-acne link by comparing diets of South Pacific Kitava Islanders to those of American teenagers. No acne was discovered among the Kitavans, whose diet consists of roots, fruits and vegetables; in the United States, where sweet and fatty foods are popular, 79 to 95 percent of adolescents have acne. While much research remains to be done--factors other than diet may explain the differences between the skin conditions of the two groups--researcher Loren Cordain, a health and exercise professor at Colorado State University, thinks the case is closed. "I'm not a dermatologist," says Cordain, who gained fame in 2001 with his caveman diet, "yet I cracked one of the greatest mysteries by solving this acne problem."