Acne Causes – What are They and Why You Need to Know
There are likely several factors coming into play that cause your acne. I know that’s frustrating – there’s no single cause to nullify to treat your acne. In a nutshell pimples are caused by one or all of the following: skin bacteria, stress, dieting, or even genetics; each one can play a major role.
What are pimples?
In a nutshell: Acne is simply a disorder that involves the skin’s hair, hair follicle, and sebaceous gland. These all come together to comprise one unit called; pilosebaceous unit. It’s the main reason you never see pimples on the palms, soles, or top of the feet and lips. All of these areas do not have a pilosebaceous unit. Okay, a little technical.
The true acne causes out there are when one of these units gets clogged and an overproduction of oil is present. This is known as sebum, which is necessary to moisturize your skin and hair. Unfortunately if more is made than the skin can handle it will help contribute to acne growth.
It’s also possible that the problem will occur due to abnormal flaking of the cells in the hair follicle. These acne causes revolve around the plug enlarging and eventually rupturing the hair follicle. Once the oil and dead cells are split into the skin it can create acne manifestations. It’s possible you will see redness and swelling.
Acne and Hormones
Pimple causes also revolve around hormones. You might have heard of androgen before, but if not it is the primary cause of acne in teenagers. What happens is it enlarges the sebaceous glands and causes an oil production increase. Any excess sebum then creates a plug that traps the dead cells. Consider it as food for the bacteria to thrive upon. When puberty begins you will see androgen levels surge, but they begin to subside by the age of 20.
Pimples and Bacteria
When bacteria lives on the skin is can contribute to propionibacterium acne. This is where the bacteria feeds on the sebum. Follicles will also be increasing during puberty, which can make the sebum production at its highest level. This in turn creates a chain of natural biological responses. The end result is acne.
Acne and Stress
Now, I know you’ve been told that stress is one of the major pimple causes out there today. Basically because it only aggravates the symptoms you seem to be dealing with every day. It could be something like a lack of sleep, a hectic lifestyle, work that is overly demanding, smoking, drugs, or a number of other issues. This occurs after the stress overworks our adrenal glands. The body gets overloaded with hormones (which includes androgen), which increases the production of sebum. Again, this will cause plugs and lead to clogged pores. When this happens you end up with whiteheads, inflammation, swelling, and tons of other appearances common with acne.
Acne and Food
Then of course you can’t forget about food. Even though the research continues, there is no complete diet that will alleviate acne causes. While this is true, someone telling you that fatty foods like peanuts or chocolate are 2 acne causes is simply a myth. The idea here is to eat the right foods your body needs and you will see a positive and preventable reaction. A great example of this is Omega-3 fats. Since this is considered an anti-inflammatory agent, it can help when the inflammation of acne occurs. It’s also important to understand that if you have the right diet you can eliminate your stress, which in turn will promote normal hormone production and alleviate the issues that encourage acne causes.
Acne and Genetic Factor
The last possibility to your acne causes could be simple genetics. The genetic cause is frustrating because what can you do about it? Fortunately, acne remedies can help even if genetics is the culprit.
My Causes of Acne video: