37 replies to this topic

[Tokra]

Do you think that we put too much oils, creams, pharmaceutical products on our faces and bodies, that our skin just reacts to it and starts breaking out?,

I dont understand how someone who has really clear skin, breaks out into severe acne for no reason.

back in the day there are no pictures of people who had severe acne or acne, they probably let their natural bodies produce oils themselves, with no medicine what so ever.

Before I had cystic acne, I tried this product on my face.. and started breaking out horribly... it lasted 9 years of acne.

Im clear now, just using water to wash my face... and maybe once every 2 weeks i use dove soap with moisturizer.

What do you think about this theory? Maybe the pharmaceutical products did this to our faces?

[Wahey]

Using nothing may work for some but for many others, no there are many other causes.

[JR86]

Do you think that we put too much oils, creams, pharmaceutical products on our faces and bodies, that our skin just reacts to it and starts breaking out?,

no, because before i started getting acne, when i was 18, i didn't even wash my face. so definitely products i was using didn't break me out, because i wasn't using any. acne is a hormonal, genetic thing.

back in the day there are no pictures of people who had severe acne or acne, they probably let their natural bodies produce oils themselves, with no medicine what so ever.

but lots of old people have bad acne scarring.

[Fox]

I don't understand this skepticism towards progress that so many people have. There aren't many pictures of people back in the day with acne because (just like people do today) they probably avoided having their pictures taken! That's even easier to do when there were less cameras around. It doesn't mean that no one had acne. I definitely think that we have many better options than people of previous generations did. If you want to make progress with your acne, go to a dermatologist. These doctors have spent 4 additional years outside of medical school learning about what is best for conditions such as acne. They're not "quacks", they're not putting you on medications to make money, most legitimately want to help you with your condition. Patience is key in dealing with acne - there's no quick fix, or so many people wouldn't suffer from acne.

Putting a product on your face once wouldn't cause 9 years of acne. (Unless you constantly applied it for 9 years). The only kind of acne that can be caused by a previous single exposure to toxins is chloracne, and that's a very different condition that is caused by Dioxins. (And No, these modern acne "fixes" like clean & clear do not contain dioxins in an attempt by cosmetics companies to perpetuate acne and increase sales.)

The human body is not in some perfect state of balance all the time. Think about it - people get diabetes, or cancer, or other diseases. Yes, some of these conditions can be caused by external factors, but in other instances, the body just develops them for no known reason. Sometimes people have acne for the same reason people have bad eyesight. There's an explanation, but no control over the cause. It's the same thing with acne.

[acneconqueror]

You are absolutely right, one of the best things you can do for your skin is to never wash it with anything but cool water perhaps once a week. Let your skin's natural process take over, stripping your skin of it's natural oils is completely idiotic, harmful and is one of the main reasons people have skin problems. Acne is not natural or genetic, acne was rare 50+ years ago and if you go far back enough, it didn't exist. Anyone who thinks we made "progress" in the field of dermatology doesn't have a clue, the condition of people's skin today is worse than ever before and that's a fact.

It wouldn't surprise me if you stop washing your face and still break out, most people's systems are fouled up from all the garbage they ate throughout their lives. Acne has multiple causes that you need to address before you get rid of it. This coming from someone who cured their own acne when the so-called skin experts couldn't.

[JR86]

Acne is not natural or genetic,

yes, it is genetic.

acne was rare 50+ years ago

no it wasn't

Anyone who thinks we made "progress" in the field of dermatology doesn't have a clue, the condition of people's skin today is worse than ever before and that's a fact.

then why are there so many old people with bad acne scarring, but now you see almost no one with bad acne. also, what about way back when leprosy was a huge concern. not to mention progress in detecting and removing skin cancer, as well as cosmetic dermatology.

[acneconqueror]

Oh yes, we are genetically endowed to develop painful cysts which in turn scar our faces for life. That makes a whole lot of evolutionary sense.

As far as old people having acne scarring, I don't deny that there may be a small number of old people with acne scars though I haven't personally seen any myself. Most old people I see, including all my grandparents who had flawless skin even though I didn't, do not have acne scarring and never had acne. If acne is genetic then why am I the only one in my family that had it? There aren't even that many people alive today that were alive in the 19th century.

Never apply any product to your skin and don't pick, scratch or touch your skin and you'll be better off. Think of those oils as your skin's natural shield, it makes no sense to strip it off.

[JR86]

Never apply any product to your skin and don't pick, scratch or touch your skin and you'll be better off. Think of those oils as your skin's natural shield, it makes no sense to strip it off.

what do you think i did before i had acne, just that. in high school i didn't even wash my face, i didn't start using products until i actually had acne. and if acne medication is useless and doesn't work, then how come i haven't had a single pimple in many months?

[acneconqueror]

I didn't say this is the only thing you need to do to cure acne. What exactly do you mean that you never washed your face? Did you apply soap to your face when you took a shower or did you take hot showers? Both can do harm to your skin. Perhaps you ate junk in your youth and clogged your bowels which can create a toxic environment internally. You'd be surprised how harmful a lot of processed food is. If you consumed partially hydrogenated oils as did/do most in America, you were doing a lot of harm to your system.

[temp123]

what do you think i did before i had acne, just that. in high school i didn't even wash my face, i didn't start using products until i actually had acne. and if acne medication is useless and doesn't work, then how come i haven't had a single pimple in many months?

They're not useless and they do work; but they're not usually tackling the root cause of acne.

It makes no evolutionary sense that this disease exists, so it must be new in an evolutionary sense, and our genes haven't had a chance to adapt.

I think the root cause of acne is diet. There's something about the modern diet that triggers it.

I think it's something like too many carbs and not enough vitamin A, C, zinc, vitamin E- acne is the endpoint of many months of something wrong with your diet.

(In some people it's going to be genetic however.)

[acneconqueror]

American diets are pathetic, the majority of Americans are overweight and you can still be undernourished and overweight at the same time. Anyone who claims that diet has nothing to do with acne is making a ludicrous claim.

[bfg9000d]

Never apply any product to your skin and don't pick, scratch or touch your skin and you'll be better off. Think of those oils as your skin's natural shield, it makes no sense to strip it off.

what do you think i did before i had acne, just that. in high school i didn't even wash my face, i didn't start using products until i actually had acne. and if acne medication is useless and doesn't work, then how come i haven't had a single pimple in many months?

This guys theory background is flawed from the get go. Actually a large number of people did have acne back in the old days. I guess you havent been in very many nursing homes. Or talk to very many older people. I volunteer part time at several nursing homes. I have talked to numerous older people that got acne and they would talk about all the treatments at the time for acne. Also with talking with allot of them. Every single one said that acne is just as much of a problem as it was then as it is today. Infact in some cases it was worst back then because their wasn't a whole lot out to treat it effectively like their is today. Why do you think their is so many ol wifes tales about acne as well as some kinda strange homeopathic ideas that have develop throughout the years. Boils and cyst and remedies have gone back to the Chinese some 2,000 years ago where medications and tricks where written to improve the condition of them.

[acneconqueror]

Well people have been stripping their skin of its natural oils for quite some time now so it doesn't surprise me that they had some degree of acne.

[JR86]

I didn't say this is the only thing you need to do to cure acne. What exactly do you mean that you never washed your face?

i mean i just rinsed it with water in the shower, because it never got oily or anything. my dad had acne when he was my age, so i assume that i got it from him. although, his didn't get better until he outgrew it because they didn't have the treatments they do now.

Well people have been stripping their skin of its natural oils for quite some time now so it doesn't surprise me that they had some degree of acne.

a lack of "natural oils" isn't the cause of acne. it has to do with the shape of the follicle, which is genetically determined, and the way the dead cells shed from the follicle wall. as well as the amount of oil produced by the sebaceous glands, which can be effected by hormones. that's not to say that irritating products won't make acne worse, they will. but they are not the cause of acne.

[john1234]

jordan, i really recommend you to read the clear skin diet by alan logan. you seem like an intelligent guy, but i want to tell ya, acne is not simply a result of genetics alone. It's the also the result of the modern lifestyle. Some people have genetics that are so good that they aren't touched even a bit by environmental stressors. But most of us--acne sufferers-are greatly affected by stress, diet, and lifestyle choices. please read the book, you'll be enlightened,

[JR86]

but i don't really have a need to read it, i already have clear skin.

[alicealicealice]

It may be true for some, but it depends what type of skin you have. Mine's very greasy and I know that's down to hormones (typically my skin got bad as I reached puberty), so if I only used water on my face and never exfoliated with proper products it would be so much worse. On days where I've stayed overnight elsewhere and forgotten to bring my skin stuff this has been proven!

Just the other day, I heard someone commenting that if you look at pictures of teenagers from the 80s they usually have dreadful looking skin, whereas nowadays if you go out and look at teenage skin it's pretty much usually quite clear.

[acneconqueror]

Stop making excuses and don't question me with your lazy, flawed logic. You've probably been putting all sorts of junk in your body throughout your youth and up to this day, wacky hormones are a consequence of this unnatural diet. You should NEVER put anything on your skin, we never evolved to require all of these products, people never used them until recently in history and people back in the day had much better skin than we do, anyone who says otherwise is just imagining things in their head.

[willow569]

It makes no evolutionary sense that this disease exists, so it must be new in an evolutionary sense, and our genes haven't had a chance to adapt.

Not everything has to "make evolutionary sense" to be retained in our genetic makeup. Sometimes the genes for one trait are tied to the genes for another trait. For example, the gene for sickle cell anemia. In moderinzed countries there is no benefit to having the gene for this disease - it appears to make no "evolutionary sense". However, it has been discovered that the gene for sickle cell is linked to a gene that protects against malaria. Now, when people were living in climates where maleria was prevalent - having this gene was very beneficial to survival. Maleria is far more deadly than sickle cell is, so those with this protective gene against maleria were more likely to survive, even though they carried the gene for sickle cell (which by itself, seems to make no evoluationary sense in westernized countries where maleria isn't a problem).

Who knows what the gene for acne might be linked to. Also, there is pretty good evidence that the gene for cystic acne came from the Spainard population. There has been a long history of cystic acne in people from this region, and you can trace the development of cystic acne in populations that the Spainards conquered (Mexicans, American and Central American Indians). There was no evidence of cystic acne in these populations until they were taken over by the Spanish, (who interbred with these populations and passed on the cystic acne gene).

I think some people are arguing slightly different things in this thread. Acne has an underlying genetic cause, but other things (diet, skin care products) may possibly exacerbate it (but are not the original, underlying cause). On the flip side, there are skin care products and dietary changes that may help prevent and control acne, but it will not change the genetic tendency towards this disease.

[acneconqueror]

Try naming a benefit to acne as you did with sickle cell anemia and you're argument may have a bit more value. Acne is an irritation caused by something we are doing differently in the environment, some may have better genes that can ward these environmental ills better, I don't doubt that. However, the only thing all of these products and remedies can hope to do is mask the symptoms of this irritation, they never treat the underlying cause. They are worthless and will only harm you in the end because they manipulate the natural order of your body.