TORONTO – A St. Michael’s Hospital doctor is touching on acne, for adults and teenagers alike, in his latest animated lecture for Canadians online.
Acne is a rite-of-passage when we’re in high school but those big red zits that haunt our picture day photos have lingering effects, says Dr. Mike Evans, a family physician and professor at the University of Toronto.
His YouTube animated lectures garner hundreds of thousands of hits online as he dissects popular health issues, such as obesity, quitting smoking and youth concussions to name a few.
His video, called 23 and ½ hours, discusses the value of daily exercise and has more than 3.1 million views. , has more than 3.1 million views.
This time, he walks viewers through the biology of acne and how it can be treated.
“Acne is fascinating in the pantheon of diseases. Many of us trivialize it as simply part of teenage life that fades and really doesn’t have any health consequences, but what if I framed it in a different way,” he says.
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“Acne is a disease that makes people feel bad, very bad about themselves…it’s a disease that can scar for life but that could’ve been prevented.”
He notes that most teens encounter acne, but it’s more severe in about one in five. Meanwhile, 10 per cent of adults still have acne by age 25.
Research suggests it’s as damaging as chronic conditions like asthma or diabetes, too.
As teenagers hit puberty, they experience plugging of the skin as they produce more oil due to hormone changes.
Meanwhile, that oil mixes with bacteria called p acnes, causing redness and swelling.
Therapies are only 40 to 70 per cent successful, but the trouble is, there are too many products to choose from.
Evans suggests that are 140 different treatments and 250 combinations.
Teenagers wash their faces rigorously, slather on the pimple cream and stay away from oily foods in an attempt to fight their acne, but Evans notes that their efforts may be fruitless in those cases.
“Cleaning rigorously or picking can actually inflame pimples,” he says. And creams don’t help the current pimples on their face.
“You’re preventing the next round,” he explains. It’s a six to eight week process to see if treatment is working in that case.
But he reminds his viewers that nothing is taboo in the doctor’s office.
“Talk to a doctor about it. Repeat after me, my doctor has seen more embarrassing things than whatever I’ve shown him or her,” Evans says.
Watch his viral video 23 and ½ hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health? here.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
Follow @bpolitiglobal
– with files from Beatrice Politi, Global News
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