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Mythical Causes of Acne.
Poor Hygiene Causes Acne- So Wash Your Face!
This is probably the mother of all myths-fostered, no doubt, by all old wives' conviction that youngsters are inherently dirty, that cleanliness is next to the godliness, that dirt is therefore the work of the devil, and that acne is the punishment for such work.
“Slovenliness is no part of religion,” preached John Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist religion.
“Wash your mouth out,” our mothers used to remonstrate. “And while you're at it, wash your face.”
No doubt, looking throughly scrubbed and clean has its advantages. However, with respect to acne, excessive washing is bad idea. Nor is dirty face, however undesirable it may be for aesthetic reasons, going to cause acne. By all means wash your face. But do so with plain water if that is enough to loosen the surface dirt. If it takes more then that, use the mildest cleanser you can find. Reserve more through washings for those of your body interstices that are likely to cause unpleasant body odor-and unlikely to develop acne.
Masturbation Exacerbates Acne.
The myth that masturbation causes or at least exacerbates acne is a tenacious one. According to Peter Engel, coauthor of a book called “Old Wives' Tales”this sort of myths about the dangers of masturbation “started as warning from parents in the 19th century to stop their male children from committing the “self-polluting act.” Incipient insanity, epilepsy, weakened physique, shifty eyes, and hairy palms were ....threatened consequences of what was referred to as self-abuse.” Just as those results were wholly false, so is the persistent belief that masturbation has any impact on acne. There is no need to control masturbation (and thus acne), as did the Victorians, by inserting spikes under boys' foreskins!
However, in addition to the aftermath of the baseless tradition that masturbation is generally bad for you, with respect to acne the belief gains plausibility because, while there is no cause-and -effect relationship between masturbation and acne , there is certainly a correlation between them. The hormonal changes that occur at the start of puberty lead to several concurrent phenomena. One of this is that, in many youngsters, they give rise to acne. And, of course this is also the time nearly all boys and the large majority of girls start to masturbate. Not surprisingly, some think the acne is the result of (perhaps the punishment for) the masturbation. It isn't.
Your First Shave Will Give You Acne.
Puberty is also the time that boys experience the first sign of the beard. Initially, the hair on a young man's face is sparse-the “fuzz” you see on the chins of teenage boys, of which they are often inordinately proud. With the passage of time, these beards become denser and thicker. But long before that happens, as often as not, the young man, striving for manliness, starts to shave. Since the new hair that follows the shave grows in thicker, the youth naturally assumes that it was the shaving that did it (just as pruning the top off a plant often makes its stem thicker). An old wives' tale-wholly incorrect-is born.
Shaving has no impact on density or thickness of hair, but the young man unaware of this misobservation, continues to shave, more often and more vigorously then necessary. The result is that the dries out his skin and, in cutting the hairs to below its surface, encourages them to turn on themselves and grow inward, causing pimples that look much like acne. Both of these phenomena, coupled with the hormones that encourage sebum production, may cause acne to be more frequent, earlier, and more severe than it would otherwise be.
So, no, first shaving- or any other shaving, for that matters-does not cause acne; but teenage boys' shaving too often and too close may contribute to it.
Eating Chocolate Causes Acne.
In our still (at least distantly) Puritan society, all pleasures, certainly including masturbation and chocolate, are prone to be considered somehow “wicked,” or at least so self-indulgent that they are bound to lead to some sort of punishment. In the case of chocolate, the punishment, as “everyone knows”, is that it causes acne.
This is wrong. In their book “Skin Deep”, Drs Turkington and Dover wrote, “In one study, 65 people are ate chocolate bars every day for a month, but although the bars contained 10 times the normal amount of chocolate, the subjects experienced no worsening of blemishes.” And researches at the University of Pennsylvania fed 50 teenagers with acne pound of chocolate a day. The result was that the acne of 46 of them remained unchanged; two got worse; and two got better. (There is no mention in this research of the impact of the intake of a pound of chocolate a day on any other aspect of thye teenagers' health, but we do not recommend it!)
The fact is, that there is nothing in chocolate that has any direct effect on acne.
However, this is where the magic of correlation, that is two things happening at the same time but not related to each other, rears its head. Over and over again, we all seem to make the mistake of assuming that where is a clear correlation, there must be a cause and direct effect.
For example, in a study conducted in the 1970s by the Helena Rubinstein cosmetic company, researches found that when they changed the package but not the content of the skin treatment cream, between 10 and 20 percent of its purchasers felt that the “new” product causes their skin to break out. This finding is in line with the experience of most industry experts. The reason is that at any moment, between 10 and 20 percent of women suffer from a new outbreak of some from acne, minor skin rash, or blemish. When that happens routinely, the women ignore it, ascribing it to their menstrual cycles, something they ate, or perhaps to a particularly stressful event. But if, immediately before the break out, they used a “new” cosmetic cream, it is that product that gets the blame. A correlation is seen as causative event.
There are three correlations that may play a role in fostering the erroneous belief that the confection leads to acne.
1.Teenagers are renowned for going on chocolate eating “binges” (chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream, chocolate anything). At the same time they often suffer from outbreaks of acne. If one of those outbreaks follows hard on the heels of chocolate binge, the timing coincidence (coupled with the youngster's guilt at having downed 10 Hershey bars in a row) leads to the certainty that the chocolate caused the zits.
2.People, who overindulge in chocolate are less likely to be on a healthy, antioxidant-rich diet. As a result of insufficient antioxidants, they may well be more subject to acne attacks. It's not the chocolate that does it, it is overall poor diet, of which excessive chocolate consumption may be just one symptom.
3.Finally, people who eat a lot of chocolate and who also subsist on a bad diet (possibly including Dunkin' Donuts, double cheeseburgers, french fries and beer) may become fat. If that excess weight and girth leads to tight clothing and extra sweat, it may also lead to more acne. But again, the correlation proves nothing. Chocolate is an innocent contributor to much more general problem.
Oily foods Cause Acne.
Nuts, butter, oil, cheese, peanut butter, french fries, fried chicken-and many other greasy foods-have all, at one time or an other , been blamed for causing acne. And once again, the information is no more correct for oils and fats than it is for chocolate. If such foods are part of generally unhealthy diet, they are bad for you- and for your skin. If they are consumed only in moderation, and only occasionally- or if they are counteracted with sufficient exercise and complemented with an otherwise healthy diet- they will not cause, worsen, or in any way affect acne.
Other foods Causes Acne.
Many different foods have been blamed for causing or aggravating acne. Shellfish, sugar, mushrooms, tomatoes, and who knows what other foods have at times been seen as a causing acne. But the fact is that the foods you eat have no impact on your acne-except in the general since that the good diet improves your overall health, and good health, including good skin, will tend to mitigate the negative impact of acne.
However, there is one diet ingredient that has been shown to have a meaningful, direct and negative impact on acne. Dietary iodides are excreated through the sebum-producing sebaceous glands and may cause an acne flare-up, usually within 10-15 days of the start of consumption. Such iodides are not widely available. However, they are occasionally found in three sources. Two of them certain dietary supplements and some seaweeds-are rare and it is unlikely that you would be consuming large quantities of them, although it is impossible if you have started on one of several rather exotic diets.
More probable is the third source of iodide: It is found in certain water supplies, especially in the Caribbean islands, where the drinking water is desalinized seawater. If your acne broke out a few days after you started Caribbean vacation, it may be the result of iodide in the drinking water.
Allergies Causes Acne.
Contrary to popular belief, although allergic reactions to the environment and to the foods you eat are frequent problem to many people, such reactions to other manufactured products you consume are rare. For example, only about three out of every thousand prescriptions written cause an allergic reaction.
Adverse drug reactions are more frequent; breakout due to such a reaction is called an exanthem. For example, tetracycline and some other antibiotics will occasionally cause a reddening of the skin that may look like the start of acne. It isn't, and it will go away either spontaneously while you are still on the medication, or definitely within a day or two after you stop.
Similarly, almost no cosmetic cause an allergic reaction. Both the individual ingredients and the formulated products are exhaustively tested, first on animals and then on humans. (By the way, even those companies that boast that they do no animal testing on their products usually buy only ingredients that others once tested on animals.) Once a new ingredient has been carefully tested, both on animals and on humans, its manufacturer usually defrays the cost of doing so by selling it to many different companies. They in turn, pleased with a new and presumably improved product, incorporate it into many different brands, which are then sold over the years to millions and millions people. Any product or ingredient that caused any noticeable level of allergic reaction would promptly withdrawn from the market. Not only would its manufacturers be far too frightened of being sued to continue to sell it, but to do so would be unnecessary. Why sell an allergenic product when there are so many noneallergenic ones available?
No, there is very little chance that you will suffer from an allergic reaction to a medication, and virtually none that you will have such a reaction to a cosmetic. But even if you did, that reaction would not cause acne.
Cosmetic products that are greasy and occlude the skin do help to form the comedones that cause acne, so, always use oil-free moisturizers.
Waxing Causes Acne.
Removing hairs by painting on melted wax, letting it harden around the hair, and then stripping it off-often practiced by woman on their legs, arms, or bikini areas-may cause folliculitis, an infection of the hair follicles. However, this is an infection by staphylococcus bacteria, not by P. acnes. It has nothing to do with acne. It is cured by a course of an appropriate antibiotics.
It is true that certain types of folliculitis form small red pustules, sometimes with tiny heads of pus. Thus, they look very much like acne. Moreover, since these pimples obviously appear in the same place as acne-that is, at the mouth of the follicular tube-they can sometimes be misdiagnosed as acne. However, this is a simple case of mistaken identity. Waxing does not cause acne.
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