What Causes Your Acne And What You Can Do

Acne (the medical term is acne vulgaris) is something that pretty much all of you will have to deal with at some stage in your life. It happens most commonly during the teenage years so that you have the pleasure of being hormonally unbalanced and also having an embarrassing skin problem. Teriffic eh? For others acne can be a problem that follows you into adulthood. Some 85% of the people reading this already have or will suffer from acne at some stage in their lives. But what exactly causes this annoying skin complaint and what can you do to treat it?

Acne is normally seen as a very common thing with easily identifiable causes and cures. This isn't really the case and acne is a more complicated matter than many of you reading this may think. The problem starts with skin pores becoming blocked with dead skin cells and your skin secreting more oil (called sebum) than it actually needs. The blocked skin pores are the perfect growing environment for certain types of bacteria. This type of bacterial infection then causes your skin to become inflammed and sore. Other skins pores become infected and within a few days you can have a total acne outbreak.

One of the most popular misconceptions is that spots, zits and pimples are caused by oily skin. This excessive oil then causes your skin pores to become blocked and all of a sudden you've got acne. There's only one problem with this theory - the oil produced in the skin pores actually moves through the blockages and onto your skin. It's part of the process but not actually the cause at all. This of course means you now have oily skin and an acne outbreak so it's easy to see why people might make this connection between the oil (sebum) and the development of the acne itself.

So what causes acne? There are numerous different causes for this annoying and embarrassing skin problem. Amongst these are genetics, stress, hormonal activity (puberty and the menstrual cycle), excessive dead skin cells and the use of steroids to list just a few. You'll have noticed that poor diet wasn't listed. Why? Because there's no definitive link between poor diet and acne. Eating lots of junk food will make you fat but it might not cause zits.

The appearance of spots and blackheads isn't the only thing to be concerned about if you suffer from acne. If you leave acne untreated and to spread all over your face or body it can have longterm consequences in the form of scarring. Just ignoring it and pretending it will go away on its own isn't an answer. Those scars can be there for life so why not take steps to prevent them right now?

What acne treatments are available to you? Fortunately the treatments for acne are many and varied. You can start with basics of skin care which is exfoliation. Then you can start looking at natural treatments like taking lots of Vitamin A. Next we have the topical and oral antibiotics, Retinoic Acid (also called Retin-A), laser therapy and light therapy. Last (and by no means least) is the simple option of following a healthy lifestyle, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, drink lots of clean water and get a fairly reasonable amount of exercise. This puts your body in balance and allows it to function properly and prevent skin conditions like acne.

Acne is something which can be dealt with so take action today - your skin will thank you.

Article Source: http://www.a1-articledirectory.com

Did you know that well over 85% of people will suffer from acne in their lifetime? Shouldn't you raise your acne awareness today? Click on over to www.AcneOrPimples.com for more information.
Click here for other unique acne articles.

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated