Teens and acne — the two seem to go together.
While we have long suspected a link between teenage acne and depressive or suicidal thoughts, a new study out of Norway lends additional scientific proof to this link.
Both teenager men and women are at greater risk for suicidal thoughts if they have severe acne — teenage girls are at twice the risk, and teenage boys are at three times greater risk.
The study was conducted on 3,775 Norwegian adolescents aged 18-19, and compared those with acne compared to those with clear skin.
But it gets worse…
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What about physiological implications (correlationary or causal)? There is evidence that immunology affects depression and other psychiatric disorders – and acne is an inflammatory condition.. I don’t know if there are correlations between autoimmune thyroid disease (clinical or subclinical, or “non-thyroidal-illness”), but if there is – some types of depression have been correlated with higher levels of thyroid-binding inhibitory immunoglobulin:
[79] Fountoulakis KN et al. “Thyroid function in clinical subtypes of major depression: an exploratory study.” BMC Psychiatry. 2004; 4(6) (doi:10.1186/1471-244X-4-6)
“Acne is one of those nasty self-reinforcing cycle things — the more you worry about it, the more stress it causes.”
Again, what about a physiolgical cause for the self-repeating cycle (of inflammation). Acne vulgaris I believe is essentially indigenous to the skin’s surface – and doesn’t usually cause a problem as long as it stays *on* the skin surface instead of getting inside it (too much). So it seems logical that the immune system may have some way to control and/or tolerate it – a tolerance which may be lost in pathological (or “sub-pathological”) acne. If this hypothesis is true, then acne may be a sort of quasi-autoimmune disorder – not where the body loses tolerance against it’s own cells, but loses (or never develops perhaps) tolerance against a foreign bacterium which is rather benign and which the immune system should just mostly leave alone – see the gut ecosystem as well.
So then the question becomes – why isn’t the immune system establishing tolerance? Or why isn’t it shutting down inflammation – once acne becomes established, it may form a self-reinforcing inflammatory cycle, which can only reliably be interrupted by artificially knocking out the inflammatory cycle or the bacteria causing it with an anti-biotic. This may also allow the immune system to somehow reset itself and re-establish (or establish to begin with) tolerance.
Thank you for useful information. If you have acne. I also recommend a method used by their. Apply a honey mask to your face once or twice a week – Honey has antibacterial properties so it is great for disinfecting and healing minor blemishes. It is also gentle on sensitive skin. the effect is good.
I recently came across a study which indicated a clear connection between the hormones in commercially produced cows milk and acne vulgaris. It was a real eye opener.I clearly recall consuming dairy regularly when I experienced my teenage acne. With this new information, I plan to adjust my daughter’s diet when she reaches the acne years.If a person does a search on the internet, I’m sure it can be found.
Hi Mike, yes read that one before, cows produce Dihydrotesterone( I had to google that one!!), which is basically a hormone found in pregnant cows. This gets transferred to the milk your drink and leads to acne.
Accutane would have to be in there as well a big risk. Powerful drug, but I don’t know if I could risk giving it to my kids when they reach their teens.