{"id":8743,"date":"2014-03-27T09:36:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T09:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/?p=2153"},"modified":"2019-09-05T12:31:41","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T12:31:41","slug":"acne-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acneeinstein.com\/acne-human\/","title":{"rendered":"To Have Acne Is Human"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting into natural health was one of the best things I did for my skin. Over time I learned how I eat and live my life affects my skin. This is also true for many others, I’ve long since lost count on the number of positive comments and emails I get from people.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there’s a dark side to natural health and healing. It encourages people to adopt many fallacious and, frankly speaking, dangerous beliefs. One of these is the idea that having acne means there’s something wrong with you. That you need to cleanse or fix your acne away.<\/p>\n

In this post I want to show that it’s natural for humans to have acne. It’s been with us for thousands and thousands of years. While in some cases it is a sign of internal problems, in other cases it’s indeed a natural consequence of being a human – something no one needs to be ashamed of.<\/p>\n

Egyptian Pharaohs, Greek philosophers and other acne sufferers<\/h2>\n

The natural health proponents often claim acne is a modern disease, and point the finger to many modern-day sins. The usual culprits include scary chemicals, technology (e.g. microwave oven), and modern-day unnatural diet. While I believe acne is commoner now, pimples have always plagued humans.<\/p>\n

Medical texts both from ancient Greeks and Egyptians mention acne and various ways to get over it. The tomb of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian Pharaoh who ruled from 1332 BC to 1323 BC, contained known acne remedies, suggesting he had acne. Other tombs have evidence for scar treatments.<\/p>\n

Writings of both Hippocrates and Aristotle shows they were familiar with acne, and that the disease was well-known and recognized:<\/p>\n

The ancient Greek physicians certainly recognized acne which they knew as tovoot, a condition which Aristotle [1] describes in sufficient detail for there to be little doubt of the identification. Hippocrates [2] also uses the term, but does not state what he means by it, although his wording suggests that it was a well-known and recognized disease. That tovoot were associated with puberty is implied in the meaning of this word in the singular, roveos, which means “the first growth of the beard”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

R. N. R. Grant. The History of Acne<\/a>. Proc R Soc Med. Aug 1951; 44(8): 647\u2013652.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that the spelling of the Greek terms in the above quote is certainly wrong. In the paper they were spelled with the Greek alphabets and what you see is the result of copy-paste.<\/p>\n

As long as there has been acne there have also been weird theories of what causes it and how to cure it. The Greek poet Theocritus at 3rd century B.C claimed that telling lies causes pimples on the nose. In the 4th century AD the court physician of Theodosius advised patients to wipe their face with cloth while watching a falling star – and the pimples would fall from the body. Of course, ancient Roman physicians also treated acne with sulfur, something we still do today.<\/p>\n

In the Elizabethan era (1558\u20131603 AD) acne was linked to witch craft, and people treated pimples with a type of mercury makeup. In 1931 Bruno Bosch, a Swiss doctor, examined 4000 girls and boys in Zurich and concluded acne was so common it could be regarded as physiological manifestation of puberty<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The point I’m making is that acne is anything but modern. It may be commoner today, and our ‘modern sins’ may indeed contribute to it, but it has existed far longer than any of the sins that allegedly cause it. Acne may indeed be a very natural thing for humans.<\/p>\n

The Great Natural Health Lie<\/h2>\n

Perhaps the biggest lie the natural health community promotes is the myth of the perfect body<\/em>. Well.. it’s not exactly lie as many of them seem to believe it, but ‘lie’ makes for a much more dramatic writing than ‘fallacy’.<\/p>\n

This is the idea that the human body is perfect and health problems, like acne, are signs that something is wrong. That you are doing something to disrupt the natural balance and harmony of the body. The implication being that you are somehow toxic, unclean or broken.<\/p>\n

In order to get clear you have to find and eliminate these disruptions and bring your body ‘back to balance’. Here’s a sampling of some alleged imbalances that cause acne and a science-based perspective on them:<\/p>\n