The Aged Human Sebaceous Gland

Abstract

Introduction A new technique for measuring the sebum excretion rate has been developed. It eliminates some of the errors inherent in other methods. The amount of sebum excreted by the sebaceous gland has been shown to be influenced by several major factors. Miescher and Schonberg20have demonstrated that the amount of sebum excreted is dependent upon the size of the sebaceous gland. The larger the gland, the more sebum excreted, and vice versa. The size of the gland changes with age. Prior to puberty, in the human the sebaceous gland is small, and little sebum is excreted.7,23At puberty there is a great increase in sebum excretion which continues through adolescence.14,16There are conflicting reports as to whether adolescent males7,16,28or females5have a higher level of sebum excretion, but aged women have a much lower level of sebum excretion than aged