Clear Skin and Acne Treatments

The choices for skin care products are so vast that it can be difficult to make a decision. Hopefully, in this short review, we can help you understand the field of skin care products by learning what ingredients scientists are saying are the most effective or most promising for clear skin.

1. Topical retinoids – According to the article “New and Emerging Treatments in Dermatology: Acne” published in the March-April 2008 issue of Dermatological Therapeutics, topical retinoids are one of the most effective known treatments for moderate to severe acne. Topical means that the treatment is applied directly to the skin as a cream or a gel. Retiniods are derived from Vitamin A. The actual mechanism by which retiniods clear the skin is multi-faceted. They promote proper growth of the new skin, reduce the adhesiveness of the cells sticking to each other, and reduce inflammation directly and indirectly.

2. Benzoyl peroxide is another gold standard. It forms bezoic acid upon touching the skin and dries up the first layers of epidermis so that the inside of the pimple is exposed, and kills the bacteria inside the pimple.

3. Azelaic acid comes in a cream form and has known functions of lightening darker spots and killing bacteria by interefering with their DNA synthesis.

4. Topical and oral antibiotics work by their well-known function of killing the bacteria that multiplied and attracted the white blood cells that fill up the pimple. Once the bacteria are gone, your white bloods cells have no reason to pile up so painfully under your skin.

5. Oral isotretinoin is recommended for severe nodular acne, treatment-resistant acne, and when there is physical or psychological scarring – this is the same as the first item mentioned, but taken in pill form instead of a cream. The newest thinking is to use low-dose long-term isotretinoin regimens.

6. Hormonal treatment in female acne targets the levels of free testosterone in women with resistant acne. In addition to oral contraceptives, a cream may be prescribed whose main ingredients works to desensitize hair follicules to testosterone.

7. Insulin-sensitizing agents. To explain the relevance of insulin, we look at polycystic ovarian syndrome, a disease associated with acne in women, but only recently understood. It turns out that PCOS may be a form of early-onset diabetes, in which the body becomes resistant to the insulin that it makes. Insulin resstance leads to a rise in blood sugar levels, and this triggers the ovaries to produce excess testosterone. So to treat PCOS, insulin-sensitizing agents cause the body to start using insulin again.

8. 5-alpha-reductase type 1 inhibitors, finasteride and dutasteride, block the pathway by with testosterone is converted to its biologically active form.

9. Antiinflammatory agents such as lipoxygenase inhibitors