When prevention is overlooked pregnancy, body building, rapid weight gain and even rapid growth become a common problem that generates stretch marks.

Stretch marks are caused by anomalous hormone activity. You don't have to be a pregnant woman or be overweight to get them. As a matter of fact, it is a very usual skin affection, but most people who have them are embarrassed and try to keep them to themselves.

Stretch Mark Associated Causes:

* Pregnancy

* Normal growth for adolescent boys and girls

* Rapid weight loss or weight gain

* Long term lacking of certain nutrients

* Sudden change in physical or environmental conditions

* Some medication may also generate stretch marks, especially steroids related medications.

The real problem is that the body generates the wrong information about skin development. This causes skin to synthesize insufficient amounts of collagen and elastin, which form the skin's connective tissue. When connective tissues are not resistant enough to endure over-stretching they break apart and stretch marks appear.

Although in many cases they seem to just appear overnight this isn't necessarily true. They are born from deep skin layers and gradually progress to the skin's surface.

Stretch marks affect fat and thin, young and old, men and women. In most cases they don't cause harm or irritate the skin so a lot of people don't even notice them until they are in plain sight.

In the beginning stage of development they are a pinkish or faint red color. The pinkish coloring is because the micro blood vessels break open and bleed. These scars generally evolve to a pale silvery white which is the final step of their developement.

Most people think that stretch marks are not treatable because they are so difficult to erase. As a matter of fact, most specialists will even tell you: just live with them, they are not curable. But why would they say something like that if there is a way to treat them? Maybe they just don't bother enough or maybe in a doctor's point of view stretch marks are not a real problem because they don't really inflict any real physical discomfort

Stretch marks are fractional thickness 'tears' within the skin, meaning that they are basically subdural scars. The best stretch mark product isn't one that contains tons of elastin and collagen, but one that triggers the synthesis of collagen, elastin and the water retaining ability of healthy skin. Collagen is the skin's building block, and elastin is the protein which gives skin its elasticity. By increasing the levels of these proteins in your skin, from the inside out , you can strenghten the epidermal layer.