What Are The Causes Of Acne?
Acne is an extremely common condition. For most people, it is an unpleasant but inevitable part of their transition through adolescence and into adulthood. It is not a lot of fun to suffer from acne, making it one of the most bothersome parts of growing up. Understanding what causes acne, though, is the first important step you can take toward learning how to minimize it as much as possible.
What causes acne?
Your facial skin structure plays an important role in understanding the initial causes of acne.The surface of your skin can have millions of tiny hairs growing up through millions of tiny openings called pores.The pores lead down to small oil producing glands called sebaceous glands. It is these that produce the oil known as sebum.
In normal, non-acne skin, the sebum produced helps to keep your skin smooth, moisturized, and healthy.The pores allow it to reach the surface of the skin after the glands have produced it.By helping to remove dead skin cells and bacteria, sebum helps keep the skin clean and moist at the same time. It is sort of like nature’s way of getting rid of the “garbage” that inevitably gathers on your skin.
Whenever this natural process is disturbed, acne develops. This happens most often during adolescence when the body begins producing large quantities of hormones and other substances that the body must learn to process and deal with appropriately. During this learning process, though, fluctuations in hormone and other levels can cause imbalances that lead to all sorts of situations including the development of acne.
How acne actually forms
When your body produces extra hormones, it causes the sebaceous glands under the skin to produce much more sebum than before.The ability of the pores on your skin to remove dead skin cells can also be adversly affected by these hormones.This will leave you with a clogged pore which will inevitability lead to swelling, inflammation, infection, and skin tenderness once the bacteria combines with the dead skin cells and excess sebum.
What happens next is you begin to form various types of acne lesions on your skin; these can include whiteheads, blackheads, and pimples.Together all these lesions are affectionately known as acne, something only the lucky few will avoid.
Living and dealing with acne
While there is no way to 100% get rid of acne problems, there are a number of things you can do to make living with it and dealing with it easier. These include:
• Cleanse your skin – Use a gentle facial cleanser twice per day to help get rid of excess oils, dead skin cells, and bacteria. Never rub or scrub your skin because this can cause more irritation and more acne.
• Apply anti-acne medication – A prescription from a doctor is not always required for these top quality medications.Inhibiting the production of sebum, the amount of bacteria on your skin and improving the dead skin removal process are the main benefits of these medications.
• Moisturize your skin – Moist and healthy skin is better able to overcome acne, so don’t let your skin get too dry.A moisturizer that is both oil-free and light in texture is a sound choice.
Knowledge is power and knowing what causes acne gives you the opportunity to do something about it.You now have the correct information to deal with your acne problems, make sure you apply it!
