New study shows that severe acne more likely to lead to suicide

Just this past week I saw another one. At well over six feet tall, this athletic looking teenager (only 16, despite his size) was unable to look me in the eyes as his mother (who looked like a peanut next to her son) discussed his acne problem. With his eyes firmly planted on his feet, his mother told how he used to be involved with every sport team in the area, and kids would flock to their house to play with him. And then puberty stuck, hard. 

Pimple after pimple erupted onto his young face, and little by little he ended his involvement with his sports teams, and the friends stopped coming over. Seems so strange to think that pimples could take down a hulking young-man such as this. As I heard the same story coming from a different mother's mouth, the same heart-rending sorrow mixed with hope fluttered in my veins, and I promised them both that we would become partners, and together he would get his life back.   

After the hundreds and hundreds of families I've seen who have a loved one suffering from severe acne, the article recently published by the Los Angeles Times is not incredibly surprising. Almost every parent I see relays the same stories about how their once social, outgoing child, became withdrawn and reclusive upon the onset of severe acne. It is always painful to hear about, as the entire family suffers along with the acne patient... but it is all the more rewarding when the patient becomes to come out of their shell again as the acne dissipates with the proper treatment.

Although heart-breaking to read the article below, it is beneficial to society for it to be well documented how much a skin condition seemingly as trivial as acne, can affect the overall mental state of the sufferer, and consequently their entire families.

Karen Kaplan, from the Los Angeles Times, reports on the newly found suicide rates and depression associated with acne:

Acne -- not acne medication -- is probably responsible for the mental health problems of sufferers, study says

September 17, 2010

One of the problems that doomed the acne drug Accutane was a widespread perception that – along with other problems, like birth defects and inflammatory bowel disease – it made patients more prone to depression and suicide. As my colleague Shari Roan reported in a story last year explaining why drug maker Roche Holding pulled Accutane from the market:

“The drug has been publicly and emotionally linked to an increased risk of depression, including suicides, and some families of suicide victims have pressed the Food and Drug Administration for its removal – among them Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose teenage son committed suicide after taking Accutane.”

But the link between Accutane and mental health problems is debatable, with studies producing conflicting results.

The latest study to address the matter was published online Thursday in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology. An international group of researchers collected questionnaires from 3,775 Norweigian teens (most of then 18 or 19) and looked for an association between acne severity and mental health.

Overall, they found that 11% of the Oslo teens experienced episodes of suicidal ideation. But those who reported having “substantial” acne were 80% more likely to report suicidal ideation compared to teens with clearer complexions. In fact, the researchers found that the worse one’s acne, the more likely they were to contemplate suicide.

Severe acne was also linked with other psychological deficits, including not thriving at school and having fewer attachments to friends. Those problems have also been linked to depression. Here’s how the researchers put it:

“Acne almost certainly causes embarrassment, stigma, shame, guilt, and low self-esteem, which are likely to cause psychosocial problems. Acne may cause depression, which then results in impaired social functioning and suicidal ideation.”

Bottom line: It is probably unfair to blame Accutane for depression in teens instead of the severe acne that led them to seek Accutane prescriptions in the first place.