Is it possible to prevent acne? Most people would not even

consider asking the question unless they were troubled by this

disease in the first place, so it is not really a matter of

preventing acne from occurring at all, but of curing it first,

then preventing its return.

Much advice in the western world declares that diet is not a

factor in causing acne, yet those who live in some other

countries are not affected by the condition. Whether this is an

inherited factor, or caused by diet has not been decided yet.

There are many who now believe that diet does play a large part

in bringing on acne, while there are just as many, or perhaps

even more who believe that junk food, chocolate and foods high in

sugar and fats have nothing to do with acne. The trouble is that

if you were not affected by it, you would not be motivated to

modify your diet to resemble that of the eastern nations.

One thing is clear; acne is not caused by dirt. It is caused when

the oil in our body is not metabolized efficiently and dead skin

cells become sticky and block the pores of the skin. Bacteria

then enters into the pores and causes infection and

inflammation.

So what can be done to prevent this happening? It seems logical

to eat less fatty foods, but our body may produce oils in any

case. Hygiene helps to control it, yet acne is not caused by

dirt, but by bacteria normally present on the skin. Therefore, it

seems that we must try to prevent acne by using several different

methods at the one time.

Zinc gluconate and some antibiotics administered orally are both

effective in treating the inflammation of acne, while insulin is

also reported to have worked in the same way. No big studies have

been done on the latter though, so proceed cautiously with this

one.

Chromium supplements appeared to have worked according to one

small study, while Nicholas Perricone advises a strict diet in

which dairy is almost totally avoided in his controversial book,

The Acne Prescription. He also recommends topical applications of

alpha lipoic acid. There was no strong scientific evidence for

Perricone’s theories until early in 2005 when a paper was

published detailing a link between acne and milk.

Research is now being done on the use of lasers for the

prevention of acne. Lasers have been used to treat the scars left

by really bad acne, but it is now realized that the follicle sac

from which the hair grows, as well as the sebaceous gland that

produces oil, can be burned away by the use of lasers. They can

also be used to kill the bacteria by inducing oxygen in them. But

no one has yet come up with a solution to the possible damage

that the skin might suffer during these operations, so this

option is a long way off.