Acne: Numbers and Facts
We have “talked” quite a lot about acne, maybe there are some of you who are lucky enough and do not suffer from acne; they are likely to ask themselves what the chance for them to get acne in the future is.
That is why in this article we’ll try a little bit to “measure acne” through numbers and statistics. We will also shortly enumerate the most well known causes for acne and you will as well find out the types and percentages of acne sufferers on different categories of ages.
So, acne represents the most common skin disorder that people are currently dealing with. Although acne is not practically a contagious disorder, it rather develops most prevalently during the teenage years, as well as during the early 20s.
Furthermore, although acne’s cause sounds simple (it is cause by an excess production of oil in people’s sebaceous glands), this skin disorder comes in many different forms, such as whiteheads, blackheads, pimples, zits and even severer forms such as cysts and nodules. If we take into account these different forms of acne and the degree in which they affect the skin, we will obtain different types of acne that have their own names and characteristics.
However, you should know that acne and all its forms and types affects people of all ages and races, as well as the both genders, although there also exist some types of acne that usually affect only one of the genders (while Acne Conglobata appears mostly in men, Acne Fulminans attacks almost only young men).
On the other hand, you should know that acne appears because one or a combination of the following causes:
• Genetics. First of all acne seems to be caused by what’s inside you. Although acne still hasn’t been called quite a hereditary disorder, the researchers have noticed that in the families where the parents suffer or suffered from acne, the children are more likely to suffer from this skin disorder too.
• Hormones. The disequilibrium between your male and female hormones is likely to lead to acne, as well as to other hormone-based disorders. Taking into account your age and gender, you could start suffer from different forms and types of acne.
• Stress. Stress represents a very important cause for acne, as well as for any other serious health problem. For your skin and your entire body’s sake you should be very careful about stress and try to have a calm and stable life. A stressful life could get you to even severer health problem than acne.
• Oil-based cosmetics. Firstly, you probably remember from another article that the entire range of cosmetic products are not in fact recommended in acne, because they tend to harm your acne-affected skin. Secondly, regarding the oil-based cosmetics, you should try to choose only cosmetics containing the so called “non-penetrating” oils, that is mineral oils, which do not penetrate your skin and do no affect this way your sebaceous glands.
• Physical irritation. This means: “Stop scratching your face (or your acne-affected skin)!” You wouldn’t need an infection too, would you? If you get your skin highly irritated acne is likely to spread and the pains could also appear.
So, once again, think twice if you feel like scratching your pimples, zits or whiteheads!
• Humidity and environmental pollutants. Regarding these factors, there nothing to be done. Pollution and environmental problems affect all of us and many other health problems. Our only weapons have remained finding the proper ways of cleaning our skin and the use of qualitative cleaning and cosmetic products.
These have been the major factors that contribute to the apparition of acne. They probably don’t seem to be too many, but they are in fact strong enough so that many people could be affected by this very annoying skin disorder.
But, how many people are in fact suffering from acne? The American Dermatologist Association has made a study and its findings have been the following:
• 85% of the teenagers aged 12 – 14 suffer from acne.
• 25% of these teenagers will be left with acne permanent scars.
• 20% of the adults suffer from active acne.
• 60 million active acne sufferers are represented by Americans
• 20 million of these 60 million have a type of acne that is badly enough to cause scars.
According to the study made by the American Dermatologist Association, about 50% of the acne sufferers wouldn’t do anything about their skin disorder. This means, unfortunately, that about one of two acne sufferers are likely to remain with scars and to have acne for a long time, just because he or she is not interested in doing anything about it.
Furthermore more than 50% of the people who are eventually interested in fighting acne would use an over-the-counter medication from a drug store or pharmacy. A small part of people would seek specialized help to a physician and some others would eventually go to a skin care center.
So, although in the recent years we’ve found out more and more about acne, there still many people who wouldn’t do anything about treating it, despite the multitude of treatments, drugs and methods for fighting this disorder. We should all be aware that no one would give us an extra amount of will so that we could strongly want to get rid of acne.
There are hundreds of solutions for fighting acne, but we should be able at least to say: “I want to get rid of acne!”, and than we would choose the most suitable treatment and we would start fighting the disorder.
All these numbers and statistics show once again that acne is a real health problem; they show also that about half of its sufferers are not interested in doing something against it, unfortunately. In these people’s cases is very likely for them to suffer from complexion and low self-esteem, which are important negative results that could affect their entire lives and careers.
Will YOU be one of them or one of the WINNERS?