Your Daily Acne Treatment Blog

The LACK of certain nutrients can contribute to the acne problem. We all know that regardless of what Granny says, chocolate doesn’t cause acne, and neither do French fries or carbonated soft drinks. It is widely accepted as fact that one the most important factors in fighting acne is complete and correct facial cleansing twice daily.

The other important factor in keeping acne at bay is eating a diet that promotes healthy skin. Sadly, the usual Western teenager diet doesn’t even come close. Pizza, hamburgers, French fries, hot dogs, potato chips, and candy bars don’t contain very few is any of the nutrients necessary to promote healthy skin.

There are many nutrients that are important to the health of the skin. Here we will discuss only three of them.

Vitamin B6: Vitamin B6 has many functions in the human body. It acts to help maintain blood sugar levels, for one thing. Foods that are high in vitamin B6 are fortified or whole grain cereals, beans, meat, poultry, fish, and some fruits and vegetables.

One result of a vitamin B6 deficiency is dermatitis. Vitamin B6 is included in multivitamin, multimineral supplement capsules, so taking a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement can help and those who have acne should probably take additional B6 supplements.

Chromium: Chromium is a nutrient that is required by the human body to maintain blood sugar levels. There is a direct correlation between sugar consumed and chromium needed. More sugar ingested = more chromium required. Research has proven beyond any doubt that people with high blood sugar levels have more severe outbreaks of acne, and that when chromium is given in sufficiently high doses, the skin clears up. Chromium can be found in brewer’s yeast and molasses but it is difficult to get enough chromium in any diet. A supplement that contains chromium is recommended.

Selenium: You’ve probably seen selenium mentioned in the news lately because selenium has been found to help prevent some cancers. Researchers have known for a long time that selenium, when given with Vitamins A and E, does reduce the severity of an acne outbreak.

There is no medical test used to diagnose acne. An acne diagnosis is made only with a visual examination. Most people can recognize and diagnose acne themselves; however, there is a tendency to overreact. One zit or one pimple does not constitute a full-blown case of acne.

Mild acne can be treated with over-the-counter medications that are readily available at all drug stores and discount depart stores and even at most grocery stores. There are also a great number of holistic or herbal acne remedies that can be found at herbal shops and health food stores to treat mild cases of acne. Home remedies for treating mild acne abound.

However, if your acne can’t really be classified as “mild”…that is if you aren’t just having the occasional zit…you really should see a dermatologist. There are medications available that are only available by prescription.

Acne usually heals itself with time. Most people simply “outgrow” acne. By the time the acne sufferer reaches his or her early 20s, the acne problem has mostly been resolved. The hormones have found a balance, and the body has stopped reacting to the upheaval that they’ve caused.

The problem is that acne can leave permanent marks on the skin where it has lived. Deep and disfiguring scars are often the result of severe cases of acne. That’s why it is so important that those who are suffering with acne that cannot be described as “mild” really need to be under the care of a good dermatologist.

If scars are left behind, once the acne has gone away, there is still help out there. Acne scars can be removed today. Lasers are primarily used, but there are other treatments for removing acne scars as well.

There is constantly research going on with just about every topic or disease that you can imagine, and acne is no exception. Acne is a skin disease and scientists have published various reports stating why acne occurs but the information about successful acne treatment has not been plentiful.

Much of the reason for this is that there is no “one size fits all” solution or miracle cure for acne. One of the big reasons that there are hundreds of creams and lotions and cleansers for acne is because one method works for some people, another method works for other people, etc. The problem with this scenario is that you could go through literally hundreds of acne treatment products before you found the one that works for you, so research continues to try to find a common solution to acne treatment.

One of the latest promising research studies makes use of an acne treatment using a controlled light source. This treatment has shown that it is pretty effective for acne problems from mild to severe, and is painless for the patient. In fact, many of the test patients have actually found the acne treatment to be soothing for them.

This type of acne treatment is a hand piece which is designed with a specific type of fluorescent lighting which is used to kill the bacteria and thereby interrupting their metabolic processes. The hand piece uses pulsed light which is an advanced treatment for the use of technology to control acne without causing damage to healthy skin.

This pulsed light treatment can also help to control acne breakouts. While this treatment does not provide a real cure for acne, it has shown great promise in being able to treat acne and prevent breakouts of it. Although it is currently quite expensive compared to the majority of over the counter acne treatments, the research on this new method is still being conducted to refine the results and improve the technology.

This approach is similar to ultrasonic facial therapies and each different approach continues to evolve and get better over time as scientists make new discoveries about how the skin works and what can irritate it. While this type of light pulsed treatment is available on a very limited basis so far, some of the critiques of this approach are that it still does not solve the age old problem of being effective for everyone.

Your best bet for acne control is to visit with your doctor or a dermatologist. They understand the different types of skin and should be able to provide you with insights and suggestions about what acne treatment methods are likely to work best for you. They understand that there is not a magic potion that will work for anyone, but they will be able to narrow down your list of possible treatments from the hundreds that are available. They can also provide you with information at the very basic level about what causes acne and what irritates it and causes it to flare up. The root causes here are NOT what the majority of people think, so some education in this area can further assist you in your goal to get effective acne treatment.