How to Get Rid of Acne

Acne is the most common skin affliction among people. Also know as zits or pimples, acne is a condition where the pores of the skin get blocked and various bodily oils and fluid build up and irritate the skin. Your skin is maintained in various ways by a series of oil producing glands called sebaceous glands. The sebaceous glands produce oil called sebum. This system of glands and sebum oil is essential to maintaining healthy skin because sebum acts to moisturize your skin and carry away dead cells to the surface of your skin. The body’s sebaceous glands are connect by tiny canals called follicles. The condition of acne occurs when these follicles become blocked, causing sebum oil to become trapped and backed up. Once the pore is blocked, it becomes infected with dead skin cells and bacteria which causes irritation and results in zits. Here are some of the pimples that grow from your follicles becoming blocked:

Papules – characterized by small red or pink bumps on the skin, no head.

Pustules – these pimples are red at the base and may have pus on the top of them.

Whiteheads – the pimples are caused when your pores get clogged and closed, oil gets trapped in, causing whiteheads to on the surface of your skin.

Blackheads – the causes are similar to whiteheads, however the difference is your pores stay opened, which results in infection and a dark spot on your skin.

Nodules – these are big solid painful pimples that appear on your skin. Don’t squeeze these as it may cause a bad infection.

Cysts – extremely large and painful acne. they are filled with pus and blood, and can leave permanent scars if not treated properly.

Acne is very common and effects many people. It usually affects people between the ages of 11 and 30 years old and affects 75% of this population at some point in their lives. The group that is most affected is young adults and adolescents who are going through puberty. Though acne is a problem for males and females alike, it tends to me more severe with men because of testosterone, which has be shown to make the effects of acne worse.

There are several reasons why people can develop breakouts and pimples. In general acne results from your pores becoming clogged and a disruption in the way your skin flushes out your bodies impurities to stay clean and clear. Various factors can come together to cause these dreadful blemishes on our skin like whiteheads and blackheads which are typical with acne breakouts. The main culprits of pimple breakouts are: overly active oil glands, blockage of you skin’s pores, increased bacterial activity, and inflammation.

There are glands under your skin’s surface called sebaceous  glands and their job is to produce oil called sebum. When you skin is normal sebum flows to the outer layer of the skin through a system of canals and follicles and flushes out bacteria and dead skin cells. There are times when the body sends the wrong signals and causes an over production of sebum, which block these canals and follicles, causing your pores to become blocked and trapping in sebum, bacteria and dead skin cells under your skin. Various hormones in your body, in conjunction with your adrenal gland, are responsible for telling your sebaceous glands to produce oil. People who are stressed, or adolescents going through puberty tend to produce more of these hormonal triggers to produce sebum and have a higher chance of experiencing a breakout. Acne develops when some of the pores ( through which oil routinely flows from the oil gland to get to the skin surface ) become blocked, leading to trapping of oil in the pores. The pores are blocked by dead epidermis cells that have been but then get blocked in the pores and bunch together. Depending on various conditins,  a blackhead, whitehead, or pimple may develop.

Another factor that can contribute to or compound acne breakouts is bacteria which lives on the skin. The micro-organism Propionibacterium acnes ( P. Acnes ), is a common bacteria found on the skin surface. P. Acnes plays an important role in keeping your skin from being attacked by other harmful bacteria and helps to regulate healthy skin. When oil is stopped up in your pores and follicles, the ordinary skin bacteria P.  Acnes will grow in the blocked pore. This bacteria produces chemicals that change the composition of the oil, that irritates the skin, which in turn causes redness and swelling making your pimple worse.

Swelling of the skin happens as the body’s immunity mechanism is acting to rid itself of a foreign substance. In the case of acne, this substance is either bacteria or the aggravating compounds they have produced.

Here are the kinds of acne that can form from blocked pores and possible bacterial build up:

Blackheads – These form when the pores are clogged near to the surface of the skin. Because they’re exposed to the skin surface, blackheads do not generally become inflamed. Blackheads are dark thanks to the presence of a dark pigment. This colour isn’t the result of lack of hygiene or dirt.

Whiteheads – These develop from a blockage  that is deeper in a pore. Lacking a drainage trail, the oil amasses in the skin, causing little flesh-colored or white-colored bumps. Unlike blackheads, whiteheads are much more likely to become red inflammations known as zits or spots. Zits ( a. K. A spots or pimples ) happen when the walls of the blocked follicle ruptures. Oil, dead skin cells, and bacteria usually found on the skin surface get into the skin and irritate it, forming little areas of soreness.

Papules – Papules are small red, inflamed tender bumps with no head and are caused by the follicular wall becoming broken. Once this happens, white blood cells invade the pore causes inflammation in the afflicted area.

Pustules – Pustules appear as inflamed red circles with pus in the center that can be white or yellow. Pustules are the most common manefestation of acne in men and women. In general you can squeeze these but be careful as you can leave a scar if you don’t do this correctly.

No one fully understands how or why acne develops. Though we’ve listed some of the major factors a lot of things come in to play when trying to diagnose the causes of acne. Some of the causes are beyond our control, such as for example hormones and the way your body and skin works. Each persons body is different and in subsequent articles we will make recommendations on how to treat acne and also give tips on what you can do in terms of prevention to try to avoid or minimize the damage from break outs.

If you ask your dermatologist or doctor if you diet can cause acne the most likely response is probably no. This is far from the case and in fact, if you think about it, what you eat can definitely cause or contribute to a problem with pimples. Generally speaking you want to eat a diet that is free or has the minimal amount of refined sugars, so this means you should stay away from processed foods, sugary drinks and candies that have artificial sugars such as high fructose corn syrup. There has been recent research that shows there is indeed a link between eating refined and processed foods and increased insulin levels. This in turn has shown to lead to encourage the production of hormones in your body which can stimulate the skin to become oily and increase the chance of blockages, bacterial buildup and skin inflammation, all of which can cause or exacerbate acne problems.

So why is it that if you ask a dermatologist, they’ll likely tell you that diet has nothing to do with causing acne and breakouts. This is basically the official position of the North American Academy of Dermatology. Sadly, this an inaccurate myth that has stubbornly endured because of a handful of flawed and insufficient studies conducted more than three decades ago. A common argument you here in this debate about the role diet plays in causing acne is that both individuals eat a comparatively healthily and those who indulge in fried food, chocolate, pizza etc and have unblemished skin, so there is no correlation between acne and food. This view point neglects that possibility that if you’re inclined to get acne, diet can worsen it.  You have heard many anecdotal stories of people with acne problems commenting that they have stopped breaking out when they keep a harsh, grain, legume, and dairy-free diet. Also, eating well is not just good for your skin and helps clear  your acne but is good for your general health.

One strong reason why doctors and epidermal experts say diet does not cause acne because they can not sell you a good diet. This may sound jaded and even cynical but if you thing about, dermatologists are under great pressure from pharmaceutical corporations to prescribe antibiotics, topical creams and other treatments. Also, drug firms fund most acne research and if a link between acne and diet were discovered it would not benefit them because pharmaceutical companies don’t sell food. Most of the research around the causes of acne is extremely biased.

From a logical standpoint, it should make sense that that diet has a lot to do with attaining skin that is clear and healthy. The mechanisms that cause acne are known: first there is a blockage of the pores by dead epidermal cells which secondly leads to a disproportionate production of skin oil. Third, these conditions inevitably lead to an infection of the blocked pore by bacteria and finally irritation of the pores and surrounding tissue creates various pimples that we all hate  which are whiteheads, blackheads and your common zit. This is typically where skin specialists and dermatologists stop – they treat these symptoms by prescribing creams to stop bacteria from colonising blocked pores or to soak up additional oil and dry out the pimple. But at the end of the day, they do not address the underline cause of the acne.

There’s been recent research showing that eating a diet rich in refined carbs and sugar leads to a boost in insulin and an insulin-like expansion factor called IGF-1. This in turn leads to a surplus of male hormones, which stimulate the skin to excrete big quantities of sebum. Sebum is a grease-like substance which encourages the growth of bacteria which causes for acne. The scientists think the modern Western diet is at fault. Refined carbohydrates / sugar ( cereal, bread, pasta, rice, crackers, sugar ) make up a very important component of our diets. These foods have been show to cause insulin levels to spike during the day. Whenever insulin is heightened, levels of IGFBP-3 ( insulin-like expansion factor binding protein three ) are reduced. IGFBP-3 is an activating chemical that controls skin cell death and hinders pores from becoming blocked by the working to remove dead epidermal cells. Increased insulin is definitely not good when you are trying to control your acne. We know that when insulin levels are heightened, it also increases IGF-1 ( insulin-like expansion factor one ), which promotes hormones that make your skin oilier. At the same time increased insulin levels impedes IGFBP-3 from acting properly and impedes the normal process of you body cleansing itself of dead skin.

Inflammation of the skin is a very important underlying contributor to acne and we all know that a diet loaded in omega-6 plant oils and low in omega-3′s, is pro-inflammatory and also leads to the production of IL-1 alpha ( interleukin-1 alpha ). Too much circulating IL-1 alpha causes skin cells to clump up together and block the pores. In addition, the affects of zinc, a vital anti inflammatory mineral, is diminished by dairy goods. The huge dose of concentrated calcium not only meddles with zinc assimilation, but the protein in dairy strongly excites insulin emission.

In conclusion it is a logical argument for a link between diet and acne. The steps are:

1) Refined carbohydrates / sugar leads to increases in insulin levels

2) More insulin results in the stimulation of hormones that create more sebum and oily skin

3) Oily skin traps bacteria and dead skin cells which cause acne.