What Causes Acne To Occur?


by Jo Wood - Date: 2007-02-07 - Word Count: 344 Share This!

Unfortunately the exact cause of acne is unknown, but many doctors believe it results from several related factors. One of the most important factors is a person's changing hormone levels. Often these hormones, known as androgens (male sex hormones), will increase in both boys and girls during the pubescent stage of their lives. This can cause the sebaceous glands to enlarge and produce more sebum.

Another cause of acne is heredity or genetics as researchers believe that there is a tendency to develop acne your parents suffered from it. In fact studies have shown that many school-age boys who are suffering from acne have a family history of the disorder.

Acne is caused by the sebaceous glands becoming over active. They then secrete oily substances on to the skin . People who are prone to acne are especially sensitive to blood levels of the hormone called testosterone and this triggers the sebaceous glands to then produce an excess of sebum (oily substance). But at the same time the dead skin cells lining the openings to the hair follicles are not shed properly and they begin to clog up these follicles. The effect of the excess oil and the blocked follicles results in blackheads and whiteheads forming.

The build up of oil in the hair follicles creates the ideal environment for a bacterium called Propionibacterium Acnes to grow. This normally lives harmlessly on your skin but when the environment is right for them they will grow. The bacteria feeds off the sebum and produces substances that cause your body's immune system to respond. This in turn inflames the skin and creates the redness that we associate with spots. In the more severe inflammatory acne cases cysts will develop beneath the skin's surface and these can then rupture and spread the infection into nearby skin tissue. This can often result in scarring to a person's skin.

The good news is that some people, once they are out of puberty, will no longer suffer from acne. Hopefully the information above has provided you with some explanation as to the cause of acne.


Related Tags: acne, acne treatment, acne scar, acne product, acne solution, acne medicine, cause of acne, treat acne

What to learn more about what causes acne? Click over to Jo's site at http://www.infoaboutacne.info Get 3 Free Reports about acne from http://www.infoaboutacne.info/reports

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: