Acne & spots

Acne & spots

The worst ages for spots are 16–18 years for women and 18–19 years for men, but people of any age can get them
Acne was more severe in teenagers 20 years ago than it is now
More people in their 20s and 30s seem to have acne these days
At 40 years of age, 5 women in 100 and 1 man in 100 have acne
The ancient Egyptians relied on a spot cream made from bullocks’ bile, ostrich egg, olive oil, salt and plant resin, mixed to a paste with flour and milk
Americans spend $100 million a year buying acne treatments

What is a spot?
The skin contains millions of sebaceous glands that secrete a grease, sebum, through the skin pores onto the surface of the skin. Normally sebum simply helps to keep the skin healthy. A spot forms when a pore becomes blocked by a plug of dead skin cells mixed with sebum. This tends to happen when the sebaceous gland produces more sebum than usual.

A whitehead is a skin pore that is blocked by a plug deep down.
A blackhead is a pore that has become plugged at its opening. The black colour is a build-up of the normal skin pigments from dead cells (the same pigment that is responsible for a suntan) – it is not dirt.

The bacteria that normally live on the surface of the skin move into the blocked pore. This can result in pus formation, leading to yellow spots, redness and inflammation. In some people, these inflamed spots can become large and lumpy.

In the future. A lot of the ongoing research into acne is focusing on the bacteria that cause the inflammation. One possibility is to use viruses to kill the bacteria; a virus commonly found on human skin (a type of bacteriophage) can damage acne-producing bacteria and could be used as a treatment in the future. Other researchers have looked at the genetic code of the bacteria and found the genes responsible for producing enzymes that break down the skin, and the next step is to find a therapy against these enzymes.

What is the difference between spots and acne?
There is no real difference, it is just a matter of quantity. If you have a few, they are usually referred to as ‘spots’, ‘pimples’ or ‘zits’. But if you have quite a lot of whiteheads, blackheads or angry-looking inflamed spots, it is referred to as acne.