Acne Under Armpits

Most people with acne try to cure their itchy skin with astringent creams, fruit washes, natural soaps, lotions and treatments. However, the easiest way to cure acne is by altering your diet and avoiding acne-producing items like fried food. A healthy regimen, comprising natural unprocessed foods like vegetables, fruits, grains and beans is the first bit of advice for treating acne.

Foodstuffs containing trans-fatty acids, milk, milk products, margarine, shortening and synthetically hydrogenated vegetable oils, as well as oily foods, should consumed. It seems the prevalence of acne in the United States is caused by the typical American diet. Americans tend to eat fried food in large quantities, usually cooked in the most harmful of fats and oils.

However, not all fats are bad for you, but the fats and oils that the average American uses make them more susceptible to get acne and other skin problems. Products that can irritate are ice cream, cheese, bacon, chocolate and milk. Furthermore, acne can’t actually be cured using external skin creams and expensive soaps because the root cause of the condition is underneath the skin.

Pimples, spots or zits and blemishes are caused by bacteria and other irritants lying below the skin’s oil glands and hair follicles, which are usually produced by insufficient hygiene, scratching or squeezing and poor diet.

This poor diet could be caused by too high a proportion of items such as processed, fatty, fried and sugary foods in your diet. A diet that is healthy for your skin must consist of raw and lightly cooked vegetables, especially green, leafy vegetables that contain valuable trace minerals and fibre. Fresh green vegetables are essential, but you should also include lean protein sources and complex carbohydrates, like rice, whole-grain bread and potatoes in your diet.

These fibre-rich foods will help ensure a healthy gastrointestinal tract, which is so important in the control of acne. You should eat three healthy meals a day in order to provide you with sufficient vital nutrients and lower your desire for sweet or/and oily, fried food.

You should eat more foods that are rich in vitamin A, such as apricots, watermelons, and broccoli, along with lean beef, lentils, nuts, beans and whole grains, because they are rich in zinc, which can also be helpful in preventing acne breakouts. It’s also vital to drink lots of water to help flush the toxins out that contribute to acne.

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While the chances of acne being curable are bleak, dermatologists are finding that hormonal therapies can help some women fight bothersome skin disease that occurs in adulthood.

At the American Academy of Dermatology’s Summer Academy Meeting 2009 in Boston, dermatologist Bethanee J. Schlosser, MD, PhD, FAAD, assistant professor of dermatology and director of the Women’s Skin Health Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, discussed the most widely used hormonal therapies available for women with acne and the best candidates for this type of treatment.

Factors that contribute to the formation of acne include excess oil gland production, skin inflammation, abnormal maturation of skin cells lining the hair follicle and an increased number of the acne-causing bacteria Propionibacterium acnes.

However, hormones also influence both oil gland production and the maturation of skin cells thereby contributing to the formation of acne lesions.

“Women over the age of 20 may experience worsening of their acne or a change in the nature of their acne. This can include increased lesions on the lower one-third of the face (including the jaw line and upper neck), pre-menstrual flares, and resistance to oral antibiotics and other traditional acne therapies,” said Dr. Schlosser.

“For these women, hormonal therapy in the form of combination oral contraceptives and/or anti-androgen medications, such as spironolactone, flutamide and dutasteride that work by reducing the activity of the male hormone testosterone, may provide significant benefit,” the expert added.

Dr. Schlosser noted that the use of hormonal therapies for acne, including combination oral contraceptives, requires careful screening of patients. Based on a physical examination, a patient’s medical history and the success or failure of previously prescribed acne treatments, dermatologists may recommend hormonal therapy to enhance the results of acne treatment in women.

Hormonal therapy in the form of combination oral contraceptive pills has been shown to help treat both inflammatory acne lesions (the papules, pustules and painful nodules under the skin), and non-inflammatory acne lesions (blackheads and whiteheads).

Dr. Schlosser suggests that hormonal therapy should not be used in isolation but instead recommends that combination oral contraceptives or anti-androgen medications be used in conjunction with topical retinoids for optimal results.

“Combination oral contraceptives can be very beneficial in the treatment of acne in appropriately selected women, and several different oral contraceptives have been shown to be effective in clinical studies,” said Dr. Schlosser.

“But the treatment of acne with combination oral contraceptives needs to be targeted to each patient’s individual needs, and patients should be monitored regularly to ensure the safety and effectiveness of their particular therapy,” the expert added.