Study: Smoking Makes Acne Worse

Hey, Guess What? Smoking Leads to More Acne

July 21, 2010

The news on cigarettes keeps getting worse. Along with facing a host of other health problems, smokers also have more acne. A report in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology finds that adult acne is "significantly correlated" with smoking cigarettes.

Of the women studied, a whopping 72.9 percent of acne sufferers were smokers. Even more interesting, researchers found a positive correlation between the number of cigarettes smoked and the severity of comedonal acne. Just one more reason to ditch the cigarettes, especially considering all of the other ways that smoking harms your looks and health. Need help kicking the habit? Check out FitSugar's tips on quitting. Your lungs (and hair and skin) will thank you.

Source: Thinkstock

5 Comments

2 years 43 weeks

ya screw smoking does nothing but bad to your health and your skin keep it up im on day 2 with out a cigarette and i feel great

TammyO 2 years 43 weeks

^^Exactly! I'm never going back to smoking. I pretty much just quit cold turkey and I'm done with that nonsense.

POPSUGAR Beauty 2 years 43 weeks

That's really interesting. Congratulations on kicking the habit! You'll definitely have better skin over time. Longtime smokers usually have little pursed lip lines as they age, plus their skin winds up looking more sallow. There are bigger reasons to quit smoking than your appearance -- like your health, obviously -- but one nice side effect is that you start looking better, too.

TammyO 2 years 43 weeks

SO TRUE! I was a heavy smoker years ago and I couldn't understand why I had such bad skin. I was basically known for my "bad skin". Pretty miserable. And I really tried everything from Retin-A to oral hormones, everything it seemed but while that stuff seemed to help it only worked briefly and I never could really get my face under control completely and just change the breakout cycle. I was always broken out and even suffered from horrible cystic acne. When I finally quit smoking my skin really started to clear up after a few weeks. It seemed to just respond better to all those medications and then after a few months I didn't need any thing, my skin was not only totally clear on it's own but my face looked really healthy and brighter, basically the skin I was always jealous of when I was a smoker. It was such a big transformation.

TammyO 2 years 43 weeks

SO TRUE! I was a heavy smoker years ago and I couldn't understand why I had such bad skin. I was basically known for my "bad skin". Pretty miserable. And I really tried everything from Retin-A to oral hormones, everything it seemed but while that stuff seemed to help it only worked briefly and I never could really get my face under control completely and just change the breakout cycle.I was always broken out and even suffered from horrible cystic acne. When I finally quit smoking my skin really started to clear up after a few weeks. It seemed to just respond better to all those medications and then after a few months I didn't need any thing, my skin was not only totally clear on it's own but my face looked really healthy and brighter, basically the skin I was always jealous of when I was a smoker. It was such a big transformation.

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