Causes of Acne
For most people, acne can be an embarrassing subject. The causes of acne, especially in adults, might really surprise you. For many years, people believed that acne was caused by eating too much chocolate or by a lack of good hygiene. This caused even more embarrassment to the people who suffer with acne. It often made them ashamed and anxious.
Anxiety is now believed to increase the incidences of acne in adults.
Although diet and skin care can be factors when pimples are involved, acne is generally not attributed to either factor exclusively. The major influence on acne is thought to be your hormone levels.
Until the glands in your skin are mature, acne is relatively rare. Babies and young children do not suffer from acne routinely. This is because your body uses hormones in order to develop and grow and most of these hormones are released during puberty.
Acne is seen most often during puberty when hormones are at their highest levels.
The sebaceous glands in the skin produce something called sebum. This is an oily substance which keeps your skin and hair moist. Sebum is also the preferred nutrient for a certain bacteria which resides on normal skin. This bacterium uses the sebum to multiply quickly causing white blood cells to enter hair follicles on the surface of the skin.
The white blood cells are supposed to lower the levels of bacteria on your skin, but they actually allow an enzyme to enter the walls of the follicle and cause damage. This creates a pustule or nodule that most people call a pimple.
Pimples associated with acne are common in most teenagers. They are also common during hormonal fluctuations associated with pregnancy, menstruation or high stress levels.
This means that almost a quarter of the adult male population and over half of the adult female population will have acne at some point in their adult lives. Women have acne more commonly than men because of increased hormonal changes associated with pregnancy, menstruation and menopause.
Although you cannot really change your hormonal biology easily, there are other factors that lead to acne and pimples on your skin. Some of these factors can include your diet and exercise program or the lack of an exercise program.
Eating a diet that is high in fats and sugars tends to affect your insulin levels in drastic ways. Insulin is considered a master hormone in your body. When this hormone increases and decreases rapidly, you become more susceptible to acne.
Lack of exercise and a poor diet can also increase your levels of stress. Increases in stress levels can cause increases in certain hormones in the body. Once again, these hormone levels changing rapidly can cause acne outbreaks.
In conclusion, controlling your hormone levels with medication or exercise and diet can drastically decrease the acne and pimples which blemish your skin.
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