You ‘re a grown man. With beards (or not), a deeper voice (we hope) and with mature decisions (still vomiting in sports bars?). You even got yourself a girlfriend. Wow! High school reality is totally gone. Or is it not?
Table of contents
It seems that acne “favors” adult men in higher rates than ever before. According to WhatClinic, 88 percent of skin care specialists can confirm this. A survey from Alabama-Birmingham University showed the following results:
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42.5 percent of men in their 20s experiencing adult acne (!)
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20.1 percent of men in their 30s experiencing adult acne (!!)
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12 percent of men in their 40s experiencing adult acne (!!!)
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7.6 percent of men in their 50s experience adult acne (…?)
Now look at your grandpa and father’s young adult photos and you will find them “wearing” a smooth skin all over their face in their 20s and beyond.
Jealous? Why is your skin doomed to bear with all these crappy blemishes and how to get rid of them? Jump in like a beautiful ape you are and find your truth!
Adult Acne VS Teenage Acne
In 2015, acne was estimated to affect 633 million people around the globe. Not the most high-paid disease on the red carpet, but still taking the 8th place from hundreds of diseases is not bad… for acne itself. It’s bad for our suffering, well into our adult years.
Dermatologists call this post-adolescence acne “adult-onset acne.”
Normally, as we age our hormones settle down. Fewer hormone imbalances, less unchecked testosterone surges. The prevalence of that stubborn teenage-acne usually goes away. Usually.
Waiting for that time of clear skin adulthood is something all teenage boys think. Finally! Clear skin! But that’s not necessarily the case and breakouts are not exactly a one-time thing.
Acne In Adolescent Boys
In adolescence, all boys experience a surge of hormones flushing through their veins. Testosterone is the most prevalent one, that ensures we do all kind of stupid things and focusing ONLY on girls that time (poor teachers).
These hormonal changes trigger acne for most adolescent men. They create the proper environment for any a pimple to thrive. Skin gets oily from oil-hyperproduction because all glands in the body get affected by testosterone. Their skin is less thick also, which means that it protects a bit less from environmental toxins and bacteria overgrowth.
Acne occurs when the pores of the skin get clogged up by oil and dead skin cells. That environment is perfect for bacteria overgrowth. Bacteria overgrowth is not healthy for your skin. An army of white blood cells is sent to the site to take down those bacteria, but the fight is bloody (literally). Stacked killed bacteria, oil, dead skin cells and white blood cells create your acne. In adolescence, all these mechanisms have faster cycles because your body changes with a fast pace. So acne breakouts are quite the norm.
Acne In Grown Up Men
Adult acne differs from the mighty pimples of high school. It is characterized by a variety markers of identifying markers such as irritation, bumps, lesions, and redness.
These are the places where oil production gets out of whack these “mature” days. Adult acne is also mostly due to environmental factors like nutrition and toxins load.
Treating acne in adulthood requires a different approach. Your skin has changed over time and most skin surface on your face does not produce the same oil as before. So for example, using products that control oil production on that skin surface can cause over-drying of the skin. In adolescence, you probably had hundreds of tiny bumps, blackheads, and whiteheads all over your face, especially your forehead. Occasionally, some cysts on the chest and back also. Amy Derick, MD, a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, comments:
Teenager boys’ skin tends to be a little stickier and they ‘re more likely than an adult man to get clogged pores everywhere.
In adult men though, acne is more likely to appear on the lower part of the face. Around the mouth and the jawline is spots to where acne can make a come back.
“It’s usually deeper nodules or red papules in those areas,” Derick says. “The fine little bumps of teen acne can still happen in adulthood, but it’s much less common.”
The 5 Common Reasons Acne Is Still With You
You may guess some reasons acne is still a companion of yours. Is it that you ‘re too sexy for it to leave you? Or is it because your body is screaming that you ‘re doing something totally wrong? Let’s get into it.
1. Inflammation
That’s the number one reason acne and every disease known to human happens in our body. The numero uno. Lion king of the hill.
Inflammation is always involved when you have an acne breakout. Its main reason of happening is to stop the invaders from going deeper into more sensitive and less protective tissues of yours. Inflammation causes swelling and redness in the area. It’s a defense mechanism that is necessary for tissue regeneration and growth. It also serves as protection against harmful substances and organisms.
When your skin hair follicles fill with bacteria and dead white cells, your body triggers inflammation to fix the mess. Blood is coming in volume to help rebuild the tissues and make a temporary solution (swelling) so that your peripheral tissues are safe. More on inflammation here, but you got the idea.
The bad thing with inflammation is that it triggers defense systems and inflammatory substances. These systems are good for now and then, but not for consistent use. It’s like ice cream. If you eat once in a while is a perfect desert. If you eat every day, it’s still a perfect dessert but you get fat and lazy with cardiovascular issues. Ancient Greeks preached:
“Metron Ariston”(μέτρον άριστον) which means “balance makes perfect”
More inflammation than needed will bring you a host of problems, including unnecessary acne. Inflammation begins usually in your gut or in your skin, but inflammatory particles travel through the blood. That way, they affect many of your healthy tissues.
Inflammatory substances are like mercenaries. You want them under control. If they take over, they can even take the side of your enemy. Click To Tweet
That’s the case here. The following are areas where inflammation can happen leading to skin problems like acne, even in your 30s and 40s. Focus especially on the following one.
2. Stress
Hormonal imbalances are maybe the most famous of all reasons acne grows on your face and back. It’s a result of physio-psychological stress. When you ‘re stressed, you make the stress hormone cortisol. Well, basically your adrenal glands do the job. Thank them later. Stress is not bad or good. Depending the situation stress can save you or doom you.
When stress response is happening at the beginning, you secrete a little bit testosterone. That’s normal, because our body’s system to cope with dangers like tigers, was (and is) stress. So, a little bit of testosterone, which is a muscle-boosting substance, will help, right? Normally, yes.
When you have pre-existing acne, more testosterone leads to more oil production from your pores. Gasoline substance if you need to grow the “fire of acne”. No good.
Chronic stress also triggers inflammation, which we already talk about it. Chronic means constant stress all day for many many days. That’s how adult men behave these days. Our need for the next smartphone, our next promotion and the need to finish a task before taking the kids, or girlfriend to dinner. All these stack up, raise your stress levels and produce even more acne for you. Not the best bargain if you ask me.
Stress happens when there is an attack on your body and mind, psychological or real. There is no need for a lion to show up to stress your system. A cookie with bad ingredients can do the job just fine. If your body does not recognize something that comes in “touch” with (weird thoughts, bad food, lion attack) it “activates” the panic option.
In any case, you can manage your stress with different ways.
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Exercise lowers your stress by upgrading how much stress you can handle, whereas at the same time you get rid of bad chemicals in your skin by sweating.
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Meditation is also helpful. It helps you clear those weird thoughts and calm your nerves too so that you provide your body the chance to recover.
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Last but not least, a good night’s sleep is the best medicine there is. Your lymphatic system works mostly when you sleep, cleaning all the waste from your body. Inflammatory by-products that cause acne are included.
3. Bad Nutrition
This is a big one. You eat every day and that’s why you should consider eating healthy. Your skin is going to benefit big time if you choose your nutrients and microorganisms(surprise!) wisely.
Vitamin D Deficiency
When you lack the proper amounts of this pre-hormone (it’s not a vitamin), your immunity is affected. Without proper immunity abilities, your body can’t repair your skin and fight off the bacteria with your awesome white blood cells. Low Vitamin D suppresses also the right amounts of oil production in your skin, by inhibiting the action of the sebaceous glands.
Our suggestion is to check for your Vitamin D levels with your physician. Your optimal level is around 50-80 ng/dl, but that differs from person to person, race to race. Black people need more sun because their skin genes evolved in a sunny continent called Africa. Well, basically Africa is the mother of all human kind. But white people going north evolved to have less protection (melanin) but more receptors so that they can grasp any x-rays possible to survive! Do your genetics a favor and choose your place wisely.
Anyways, consult your doc no matter what. You ‘ll probably need to supplement with Vitamin D capsules because the other option is to stay 80% or more with naked skin outside while the sun is in the sky.
If you live in rural areas, that’s fine. But for most of us, city apes, that’s kinda difficult to, so stick with supplements.
High Sugar Nutrition
The sugar molecule is a necessary part of our nutrition. Mostly in the form of glucose and fructose. We can live without it for many days (ketosis) but sure enough the day we will need it will come sooner or later. In the wrong amounts though it’s a killer.
Excess glucose is inflammatory and increases oil production by converting your testosterone to DHT. Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is a more potent form of testosterone, that is useful in small amounts after adolescence. It governs how much oil is produced by our sebaceous glands in our skin, so more DHT in general means more oil which leads to more acne.
There is even science to back this statement. In 2007, researchers from an Australian Institute found that people who followed a low sugar diet * had a profound change on their skin. They had a 22 percent decrease in acne lesions than their high sugar dieters who also participated. Awesome? Scientists suspect that it’s insulin that does the job. Raised insulin levels from the carbs seem to trigger the release of inflammatory substances who destroy hair follicles and exaggerate oil production from your sebaceous glands.
* low in complex carbs, medium protein consumption and medium to high good fats consumption.
Conventional Dairy Consumption
We all love dairy, because of its taste. People say dairy can build muscle, dairy has all the amino acids and one of the best nutritional profiles for an organism to thrive. Which is partially true, but there are 2 things to consider. The first is kinda obvious: why to drink something that is not intended for you, but for cow’s kids? The second is more tricky.
Practises of conventional dairy farms include milk overproduction from cows to meet demand. That can only be achieved if the cow takes special hormones to produce milk way after her birth. These hormones make the cow sick, because it’s an unnatural way to produce milk and so the farmers give them antibiotics. Both hormones and antibiotics pass into the milk and you drink it. The bring hormone imbalances (lower testosterone. more estrogen in you) and enhance inflammation (antibiotics).
But the mess does not stop there. In 2006, Harvard University conducted a study with teenagers. They found out that:
Teenagers who drank 2 or more glasses of milk every day had a 20 percent higher risk for developing acne. Click To Tweet
The researchers suspected that the high sugar content of milk (lactose) is one of the main reasons, side by side with hormones and antibiotics.
Try not to consume dairy for 30 days and then get it back into your nutrition plan. If you see no difference, then do as you please, your responsibility. But if you see any skin rashes or digestive problems, we suggest to do a food-sensitivity test for sure. Or just avoid dairy alltogether. If you cannot avoid it, eat traditional greek yoghurt instead of milk.
Probiotics Imbalance
This part could be a stand alone and will be in the near future. But for now let’s consider it part of our nutrition and digestive system.
Probiotics are small bacteria that live inside and out of you. They live with you in symbiosis (living together). They offer solutions (defensive mechanisms and general immunity) and take a tiny piece of your pie (food). They help also with digestion and absorption of nutrients that keep you alive. Scientists now say that they can even help you clear you skin:
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A study done in China examined over 13.000 teenagers. They found out that those with acne were much more likely to suffer from digestive problems. Digestive health is of the reasons acne is prevailing. It is also linked directly with probiotic imbalances (bad bacteria take over).
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A study in Russia concluded that 54 percent of acne patients had markedly different gut microflora than the non-acne patients.
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A study done in Italy led to the following results. Bacterial imbalance is 10 times(!) more prevalent in acne patients than in healthy people. Not only that, but the researchers tried to solve the problem with probiotic supplementation. They succeeded removing almost all acne!
More research is needed with probiotics, but the first signs are encouraging.
Dehydration
Dehydration affects the skin by making too dry and tough. That can cause the skin to peel, which means more dead skin cells on the top layer of your skin. Because your skin is thirsty and you do not give it the proper water content, it produces oil. Oil has less water than sweat so some water can be used that way. Now, combine increased dead skin cells (bacteria food) and more sebum (good oily bacteria environment). Yes. 1+1 can be 3 in a parallel universe. But here, dead skin cells, oil and some dust (on your skin) are acne boosters.
You can fight this by drinking more water for starters. It will restore your water supplies that your skin cells love to have in. Then use a humidifier and a water-based moisturizer to relieve dryness.
4. Environmental Toxins
Impurities from the air can get into your skin via the blood stream (o shit!). Your body doesn’t like that chemical stuff and wants to get rid of it. Its way to do this is to push this stuff out of your lungs, so that you avoid cancer. But this stuff has to end somewhere. Your skin. Be aware that your skin “inhales” oxygen and exhales carbon by its small blood capillaries. These capillaries bring these air impurities to your skin so they can get out of your system by sweating and skin “exhaling”.
When these toxins make it up to your capillaries, your skin’s immune cells swallow them up like a cake and take them out. That procedure is an inflammatory one. Inflammation leads to acne.
Avoid walking in busy streets with a lot of cars to avoid car fumes. Click To Tweet
Choose to walk in parks and visit nature once a week. Do not find an excuse, there is nature even in the biggest cities (New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, etc).
5. Sweat and Irritation
Half of men that deal with face acne, deal with back and chest acne too. That’s because the skin of the back and chest contains even more skin oil and bacteria than the skin of the face. The skin of the back and chest is thicker with larger pores too, which means that every acne pimple gets magnified.
We know for sure that physical irritation from our clothes can make this acne worse. Combine this un-natural (for our body) 24/7 irritation with sweat throughout the day. Sweat sitting on the skin and irritated by the cothes is a bad idea. Your skin can’t find the way to “breathe”. It produces even more sweat, which dries out your skin. The next step is…. oil production. More of it. Now, take all that “salad” and through some dead skin cells and you ‘ve got yourself the perfect conditions for your body to cause acne breakout.
sweaty clothing + skin irritation from clothing = more acne
There are ways to avoid this mess. When you shower, use a brush to wash your back. You can find them in the interwebs. They have an extension so that you can wash your hard-to-reach areas. You can also be aware when your shirts get sweaty and dirty. Change the shirt each day. Never wear the same two-days in a row. Try to buy shirts that let your skin “breathe” and have moisture control.
Cοnclusion
Well, I am sure that you find this piece of art entertaining. Maybe boring to hell, but either way. Take your responsible actions and put acne to sleep once and for good. Its about time!
Before you go, take this gift-o-graphic home with you and show it to your parents. They may have acne too, it will help! Have fun!
Special thanks to:
[1] http://www.webmd.com/men/guide/acne-men
[2] http://www.livestrong.com/article/77262-acne-people-over/
[3]http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/youve-acne-your-40s-could-6269587
[4]http://www.livestrong.com/article/238721-how-to-treat-acne-for-a-fifty-five-year-old/
[5]http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/acne/features/adult-acne-is-treatable#1
[6]https://www.acne.org/adult-acne.html
[7]https://www.self.com/story/adult-acne-causes-and-treatments
[8]https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/acne-and-rosacea/adult-acne
[9]http://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/best-treatments-for-adult-acne
[10]http://www.fitmc.com/probiotics-acne-skin/
[11]http://www.livestrong.com/article/552184-does-being-dehydrated-cause-pimples/
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