Understanding the Causes of Teenage Acne

You may think you have teenage acne as some sort of punishment
for a crime you didn’t even know you committed. Actually though,
you’re breaking out for two main reasons. The first is that, as you
mature, your hormones are telling your oil glands to produce too
much oil, and your body isn’t handling the oil very well. Another
reason you’re breaking out? Well, you may be able to go ahead and
blame your parents or other ancestors for this one. Heredity plays
a huge role in whether you end up with acne. In this section, I go
over both topics to give you a better idea of why you’re breaking
out. (In Chapter 6, I provide you with many other theories and pos-
sible causes of acne.)
Passing through puberty:
Hormones gone wild
By the time you hit puberty, it may seem like all you hear about is
hormones and how they’re to blame for every problem you have,
from shyness to a low paying job to acne. In the case of acne, what
people are telling you is the truth. Hormones are to blame!
Hormones are the chemical messengers that provide the signals
that regulate many of your body’s functions and that are responsi-
ble for the changes you experience during puberty. They’re also
responsible for bringing your acne to the forefront. (I go into more
detail on hormones in Chapter 3.)
The most important hormones when it comes to acne are your
androgens. Androgens are really a group of closely related hor-
mones. The androgen testosterone is the main “male” hormone.
Besides bringing on puberty-related changes, it’s also central to
our acne story.
Androgens are a natural part of development for both boys and
girls, but boys tend to produce more of them, especially testos-
terone, which is why boys have bigger bodies and stubbly beards.
The higher level of testosterone in boys is considered to be the
reason that they tend to get more severe breakouts of acne than do
girls. As in males, androgens also are necessary for the develop-
ment of acne in females.
Estrogen and progesterone are female hormones that play the pri-
mary role in puberty. These female hormones play less important
roles in the evolution of teenage acne than do androgens, but their
influence on acne’s ups and downs, as well as their part in its treat-
ment, is significant. I talk about both of them in relation to adult-
onset acne in Chapter 5, and I tell how they’re used in the
treatment of acne in Chapter 10.