What Are The Causes Of Acne?

Acne is an extremely common condition.For most people, it is another of life’s little trials. Seemingly few will escape.Lots of people find it difficult enough coping with what growing up throws at them and then along comes acne.  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?

To understand what causes acne we must first understand the structure of your skin, especially on your face.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.  It is produced by the glands and works its way up through the pore onto the surface of the skin.By helping to remove dead skin cells and bacteria, sebum helps keep the skin clean and moist at the same time.This is nature’s way of removing the debris that inevitably gathers on your skin.

The result of any interruption to this natural process is acne.The body starts to produce increasing quantities of hormones and other substances during adolescence and it will take time for it to learn how to appropriately process them.  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.The visible end result will be swelling, inflammation, infection, and skin tenderness all due to the bacterial activity inside the clogged pore.

After this a variety of different acne lesions start to form on your skin, whiteheads, blackheads and pimples being particularly common.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.Scrubbing your skin can lead to more acne because of the irritation. Gentle cleansing is always best.
• Apply anti-acne medication – Many excellent medications exist, some of which do not require a doctor’s prescription.These medications offer substantial benefits to the user. Controlling the sebum production, helping to limit the amount of bacteria on the skin and thereby encouraging the removal of dead skin cells, being the main three.
• Moisturize your skin – Avoid letting your skin get too dry and you will find your acne problems diminishing.The last thing you want to do is to add more oil to your skin, so a light in texture, oil-free moisturizer is ideal.

Now that you know the causes of acne you are in a position to make informed choices.All that remains now is for you use the information you have discovered!