What Causes Acne?

Have you ever seen water bubbling on the stove? What about hot lava doing the same as it churns around an active volcano?

When you look at water or lava bubbling, what you see is the substance filling up with air and other molecules, stretching the membrane or outer layer of the substance until it bursts.

But what if you were watching something that couldn't burst in that way? It would be much like filling up a balloon - it would just get bigger and bigger and then stay that way.

Acne is something like that. It is a "filling up" in a pore or hair follicle that then gets bigger and bigger and since it doesn't burst, it just stays that big, causing a bump that we call a pimple or zit.

The Buildup That Becomes Acne

A balloon expands because there is air inside of it. But with acne, it's just not that easy. The substances inside of a pimple include oil, dirt, and dead skin cells.

Oil is an important factor for your skin as it keeps it soft and supple; without it our skin would be like leather and would crack and bleed more often. But when there is too much oil in any one space, this oil also acts as a trap for these other elements including dirt, dead skin cells, and so on.

When dirt and oil and these other elements get trapped in a hair follicle or skin pore, it can continue to collect and grow if the skin layer on top of it does not naturally break away and allow it to be washed off the face. When that happens the small "sac" grows into a pimple.

Oil and dirt are very sturdy and feed upon each other. This is why acne may spread for many people; some have just an occasional pimple here and there but most who are prone to acne find that they have it all over their forehead or chin or other spot as opposed to just one small contained area. It can also easily spread on the shoulders or back, another area of the body that is prone to dirt and oil buildup.

Many Factors for Acne

Acne doesn't happen because of just one particular circumstance but there are many things that go wrong with skin that is acne prone.

Under normal circumstances the cells on the outermost portion of the skin exfoliate by themselves which means that any buildup inside and underneath the skin gets washed away easily. With acne that top layer doesn't open up so that dirt and oil can't be washed away.

This explains why that buildup stays on the skin but doesn't explain why it happens in the first place. Understanding what causes this buildup is probably going to be one of the most important factors in treating your acne, since there are many incorrect ideas about the root causes of acne.

Hormones.

When hormones are imbalanced this causes a chain reaction of events that affect your skin's surface. Androgens are a type of hormone that stimulate your oil glands to go into overdrive and to produce what is called sebum. This sebum moves up the hair shaft and mixes with bacteria and dirt; if the hair follicle or skin pore gets blocked this causes acne.

Some experts dispute the idea of hormones being connected to acne; since all people have hormones and not everyone has acne, they feel that the two cannot be as connected as some may think. But there's no arguing the fact that hormones can affect everyone in a different way and that it's very shortsighted to say that since not everyone is affected the same then there is no connection at all.

As an illustration, it's believed that male hormones have much to do with male pattern baldness. However, not all men have male pattern baldness while all men have male hormones. Again, everyone's system is different and everyone is affected differently by their hormones.

Dirt and bacteria 

Living or working in a very dirty or dusty environment means that you're going to have more dirt and dust on your skin; there's just no getting around that. After all, one function of your skin is to protect your sensitive insides from dust and dirt in the environment.

If you look at anyone that works in a mine or other such place you'll notice that their skin turns grey or black from the dust and dirt. It only makes sense that this same dirt would settle into the pores of their face and stay there.

Stress

Our bodies respond in all sorts of way to stress and pressure. We may get short of breath, panicky, nauseated, tired, irritable, and so on. Many of these reactions can be traced back to primitive responses to threats and dangers.

For instance, you may feel lightheaded and dizzy during times of extreme stress because the body is moving blood to your legs in case of that "fight or flight" response, which means the blood is draining from your head, causing you to be dizzy. You may feel nauseated for the same reason - that vital blood that's needed for digestion is being diverted to your legs, making you feel sick to your stomach.

It's still unclear why the body would break out into acne during times of increased stress but it might have to do with an increase in oil production during these times. The body may feel that it needs to protect itself, including the skin, and this means that it needs to produce more oil as that protection. It might also be true that as it diverts blood to the muscles of the legs it moves it from the face, meaning that this important blood is not washing away dirt and bacteria and dead skin cells the way it normally would.

In any event, stress does seem to make one more prone to breakouts and acne. Whatever the reason for this - a compromised immune system, overactive oil glands, or something else - there is a connection between the two, so be wary of stressful situations and your acne.

Over cleaning 

The body has some interesting reactions to the things we do to it, as ways of protecting itself. For example, when you don't drink enough water the body has a tendency to retain water, in order to save it since it's not getting enough from you. If you don't eat properly the body will actually start to draw protein and nourishment from its own muscles since it's not getting that nourishment through your diet.

So when it comes to cleaning your face, if you clean too often or with products that are too harsh, thinking that you're going to get all that oil and bacteria off, the body may actually start to produce more oil in response.

All it knows is that you're stripping that important and healthy oil off of the face, so it needs to produce more to compensate. Cleaning too much or too harshly is a common mistake of those with acne, but it really only makes the situation worse in many circumstances.