Bacteria have been found to play a vital role in our immune defense, especially in treating skin infections as per recent research published in the Science Translational Medicine journal.
The study revealed that patients who were affected with persistent eczema lacked friendly bacteria which usually fight against harmful bacteria named Staphylococcus aureus.
This led to the study of skin lotions enriched with our body’s useful bacteria to fight against skin infections like eczema.
The study was conducted by the researchers of the University of California in San Diego, the United States on about five patients with eczema. They took bacterial samples from the patient’s skin and took out certain species of bacteria.
It was revealed that in patients with skin problems, the bacteria-rich lotion protected their skin from infections by killing harmful germs present on the skin. This study thus revealed the importance of useful bacteria in protecting the skin from infections and their role in our immune defense.
Specialists played out the concentrate by taking patients with dermatitis, a skin condition that is portrayed by irritated red and excited skin. They found that patients with eczema are deficient in useful bacteria, while patients without eczema have plenty of helpful bacteria on their skin.
The researchers swabbed the skin of patients and cultured a few friendly bacterial strains. They grew these useful bacteria in the lab in abundant amounts and added these microbes to skin lotion.
They made the patients apply these personalized bacteria-containing lotions to one arm and regular moisturizers to another arm.
After 24 hours of observation in all five patients, the experimental arm treated with bacteria containing lotion had shown nearly total improvement of the skin condition in three patients, and in the other two patients, the staphylococcus bacteria were destroyed completely.
