{"id":8688,"date":"2013-03-06T14:15:30","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T14:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/?p=940"},"modified":"2018-11-03T11:56:20","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T11:56:20","slug":"studies-reveal-almost-irrefutable-evidence-for-the-root-cause-of-acne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/studies-reveal-almost-irrefutable-evidence-for-the-root-cause-of-acne\/","title":{"rendered":"Studies Reveal (Almost) Irrefutable Evidence For The Root Cause Of Acne"},"content":{"rendered":"
Not too long ago a person at acne.org forums was complaining that despite \u2018doing all the right things\u2019 her acne just wouldn’t go away. She then went on to complain how acne is maddeningly confusing and how nothing seems to work. Needless to say, acne, and trying to get over it, had made her utterly confused.<\/p>\n
I believe this confusion as to what acne is how to treat is the biggest obstacle between you and clear skin. It leads you to merry-go-round where you try one thing after another. Desperation starts creeping in when you don\u2019t see the results you expect, and that makes you vulnerable to quacks promoting unscientific and dubious methods.<\/p>\n
Today I\u2019m going to share with you a couple of studies that provide antidote to the confusion. We are going to talk about 3 new studies that provide even more evidence that inflammatory damage at the skin is the<\/b> root cause of acne.<\/p>\nAcne severity correlates with inflammation level<\/h2>\n
A study<\/a> published in January 2013 provides quite damning evidence. In the study Saudi Arabian researchers compared measures of inflammatory damage between acne patients and people with clear skin. They further divided the patients to three groups: mild, moderate and severe, according to acne severity.<\/p>\n This graph shows measures of inflammatory damage. For copyright reasons I can\u2019t use their graphs, but I reproduced them from the data.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Source: Biochemical Markers of Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress in Acne Vulgaris: Correlation With Disease Activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n As you can see, there\u2019s a clear correlation between acne severity and inflammatory damage. The graph shows measures for both protein oxidation (the blue bars) and lipid peroxidation (damage to fats, the red bars). But the details don\u2019t really matter to us. What matters is the overall trend showing higher levels of inflammatory damage as acne goes from mild to moderate to severe.<\/p>\n On the flip side, they also looked into antioxidant activity. Here are the results for antioxidant enzymes. This chart shows measures for two very important antioxidant enzymes glutathione<\/i> and superoxide dismutase<\/i>. Much like vitamins C and E, these enzymes neutralize free radicals and other inflammatory molecules.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Source: Biochemical Markers of Oxidative and Nitrosative Stress in Acne Vulgaris: Correlation With Disease Activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Again we see a similar pattern. People with clear skin show higher levels of these antioxidants and that the levels drop as acne gets worse.<\/p>\n Of course correlation doesn\u2019t equal causation. These data don\u2019t prove that inflammation causes acne. And if these were the only data, I would be careful not to jump to unwarranted conclusions. But these are not the only data, not even close. In the earlier posts I have covered more data on inflammatio<\/a>n and the potential role of topical antioxidants<\/a>.<\/p>\n Acne lesions show inflammatory damage<\/strong><\/p>\n Another study<\/a> published in Novermber 2012 provides more evidence. The earlier study measured markers of inflammatory damage and antioxidant enzymes in the blood. This study measured similar things in actual pimples. For the study the researchers took skin samples from people with varied severities of acne, again divided into mild, moderate and severe categories. They also took control samples from people with clear skin.<\/p>\n Results show that people with severe acne showed 2 to 4 fold higher levels of inflammatory damage<\/strong> than people with mild or moderate acne. Similarly, antioxidant enzyme readings were significantly lower in people with severe acne than the other participants. For the most part, there was not much difference between people with mild acne and those with clear skin.<\/p>\nStudy: Antioxidant supplements reduce acne by 50%<\/h2>\n