By: J. Martin
Submitted: 2009-10-08 11:53:17 | Word Count: 573
If there is one condition that can be distressing in today’s image obsessed world, then it has to be acne. Acne, an illness characterized by pimples, blackheads and whiteheads is particularly distressing because its effects tend to be most manifest where they are also most conspicuous, namely on the face and on the neck. The fact that acne tends to affect teenagers and young adults most does not help matters either, as these are the very categories of people who are most sensitive about how they look and how others perceive them.
Unfortunately, in addition to the distress that Acne causes to its victims by virtue of its symptoms, discomfort from it is further aggravated by a number of myths surrounding Acne and its causes. The people behind these myths seem to be working from the fact that most Acne sufferers tend to be in the age group when people are most impressionable, and when the ability to shift fact from fiction has not yet been fully established, as such a nuanced ability tends to be more of a function of wisdom that anything else.
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One of the myths surrounding Acne is the one the effect that the condition is caused by poor personal hygiene. While it is true that Acne is caused by a bacteria, and while it is true that bacteria tend to thrive in dirty environments, attributing every case of acne to poor personal hygiene would at best be a fallacious assumption, because Acne has been known to affect even the people maintaining the very highest possible standards of personal hygiene. It is important to mention that maintenance of high standards of hygiene is an important step in fighting Acne (as indeed all other related skin conditions), but it is wrong to brand every person who happens to suffer from Acne dirty, as Acne is a highly complex affair, caused by quite a huge variety of factors.
The second of the myths surrounding Acne is the one to the effect that Acne is caused by poor eating habits, implying that people suffering from Acne can get cured by changing their diets alone. While research on the causes of Acne is still ongoing, and while a lot about the ultimate causes of Acne is still unknown, what can be gleaned from the wide body of knowledge on the condition already available is that this is a highly complicated condition, one that can not be entirely blamed on diet. Of course, maintaining a sensible diet can help in keeping oneself from many skin conditions (as indeed many other illnesses) since food is the fuel for the body, but what is wrong is to attribute every case of acne to poor dietary choices, whereas most of the Acne cases might be more complex than that.
The third of the myths surrounding Acne is the one to the effect that Acne is incurable. This might well have been the case some years back, but the advances that have been made in medical technology make it possible to clear most cases of Acne today; if only the Acne victim cares to get medical help. Of course, many people – quite sensibly, one would say, hold the opinion that it is best to try to cope with the mild cases of Acne without seeking medical recourse, and few people can argue with this view – especially where the victim is not too distressed with their Acne condition.
