Does alcohol cause Acne and cause of breakout? - Dr. Nischal K | Doctors' Circle

Acne is a condition that is influenced not only by hormones but also by lifestyle. So whenever the lifestyle is good the acne definitely increase. So this is why we are seeing a lot of acne over a period of time. Around 20 to 30 years people were not aware of acne was and the severity was not so great. But nowadays we see a lot of acne. Acne is starting as early as 8 years. So why it is happening is because of the lifestyle and one important thing is the consumption of alcohol. Alcohol consumption has affected all age groups across all strata of the society. So alcohol definitely influences. What it does is alcohol is a vasodilator. Whatever blood vessel reaction is there, a small redness you have that increases when you have alcohol. So naturally what happens is small lesions tend to become bigger the inflammation increases. Second what happens people tend to put on weight when they consume a lot of alcohol. Whenever there is a lot of body fat there is alteration in the hormone metabolism. This is giving a lot of acne problems and facial growth in females. It gives rise to hair fall in men and it is also giving rise to pigmentation. Things tend to increase when you consume alcohol. Definitely when the acne is increasing in severity, either with the number or the size, you can end up with a scar. Acne can be cleared somehow but once scar is always a scar. For that reason alcohol and acne doesn’t go together. Second aspect is there is a condition called as rosacea which looks very similar to acne but only component is they tend to be very red when they go out in the sun. That is called a photosensitivity and this increases with alcohol. So acne severity, the damage caused by acne. Both increases with alcohol and hence it is not a good advice to have alcohol when you have acne and even otherwise alcohol is not a great idea.