There may be a payoff for all of those years of teenage angst that acne causes. The same high levels of male hormones that can trigger acne during adolescence may protect sufferers from heart disease as adults.
Researchers in the United Kingdom investigated the link between male hormones, called androgens, and acne. Almost 10,000 men participated in health checks between the years of 1948 and 1968 when they were students, and any history of acne was noted. The scientists found that 18 percent of the men reported having acne.
Years later, the men were traced through the United Kingdom’s National Health Service Registry. Researchers found that the men who had a history of acne as adolescents had a 33 percent reduced risk of dying from heart disease than the men who didn’t have acne.
“We found that those who had acne were also less likely to smoke, but even when we ruled out this and other factors, we found a very strong correlation between acne in youth and coronary protection later in life,” researcher Bruna Galobardes told New Scientist.
“It is possible that higher androgen levels or higher androgen activity may be linked to lower lipid levels or somehow affect the processes involved in creating arterial plaques,” she said.
On the down side, high levels of androgens may raise the risk of developing prostate cancer. In the study, men who reported having acne had a 67 percent increased risk of dying from prostate cancer.
