Acne

Acne

Everyone has been though an embarrassing moment in there lifetime. One of the worst is when a big red dot raises to your skin on your face before an important day. This dot is called a pimple, and people wake up with new ones everyday. There are many mysteries about how to cure acne, but what we do know is how to control it with certain medicines.

Hormones and acne have a direct connection. When puberty hits, the body produces a high level of testosterone and androgen (Skin Conditions). These hormones simulate sebaceous glands to enlarge and secrete more sebum. The sebum gets accumulated in the follicle, and moves up the hair shaft to exterior part of the skin (The acne resource center online). A bacteria, know as Probionibacterium acnes, live on the skin harmlessly but when an ideal environment is formed it grows (Acne). This bacteria grows in plugged follicles and feeds on sebum. So when the Sebum goes up the follicles, the bacteria mixes with sebum causing the hair follicles to get blocked. This blockage becomes a breading area for the bacteria, making acne (The Acne Resource Center Online).

(http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/Mosby_factsheets/acne.html )

Just about every person in the world has had an occasional whitehead, blackhead, or pimple between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Many of these young people are able to manage their acne with over-the-counter (nonprescription) treatments. For some, however, acne is more serious. In fact, by their mid-teens, more than 40% of adolescents have acne severe enough to require some treatment by a physician. Acne usually stops forming in your early twenties, but sometimes it will last till your thirties (American Academy of Dermatology).

There are many acne treatments out on the market. Many of the products sold at stores have Salicylic Acid or Benzoyl Peroxide as their acne fighter. These chemicals don't stop acne, but will help with future breakouts if used everyday. For more serious cases of acne, you can use prescription drugs and even laser surgery.

The formula for Salicylic Acid is C7H6O3 with a density of 1.44 and a molecular weight of 138.1226 (Salicylic Acid). Salicylic acid is a mild acid that works as a keratolytic agent -- it encourages the sloughing of dead skin cells. This helps prevent acne by peeling off your top layer of skin, and opening up your clogged follicles. Doing this will reestablish the normal skin-cell replacement cycle. This acid does not get rid of the presence of Probionibacterium acnes or stop sebum, but does unclog pores (Treatments).

Structure of Salicylic Acid

http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/pharm/pim642.htm#SectionTitle:3.2%20%20Chemical%20structure

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