A survey of identical and fraternal twin pairs at the Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, and published in the April issue of the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, shows the skin condition may be primarily caused by genetics. Study findings show the proportion of pairs where twins have acne was significantly higher in identical (64 percent) versus fraternal (49 percent) twins.
Participating in the survey were 202 (101 pairs) identical and 53 (26 sets) fraternal twins, including one set of fraternal triplets. Both groups were young, predominantly female and the majority of the participants were Fitzpatrick Skin Types II or III. The survey was conducted at the 2016 festival.