Lurking in the depths of that scruff is something far mightier than you could ever imagine. Photo: Shutterstock.
Ladies, lay down your weapons. Your fight against the beard is now to no avail. Despite your grumbles and pleas, you can no longer stop what you’ve known for a long time would be inevitable. For now, even science has taken the side of the hipsters and the hairy. You can kiss your clean-shaven boyfriends and brothers good bye, for nothing can stall the dynamic momentum of the beard from this point forward. What began as a hip and happening trend has now become just good health. While most hygienically conscious people question and fear what lives within the shadows of dense facial hair, a recent study found an answer: some pretty good stuff.
Unfortunately, hospitals are often hotspots for diseases beyond the ones for which patients are treated. MRSA, staph, and pneumonia too often infect patients admitted for other health issues. Health care staff workers are vulnerable to these diseases, and they can unintentionally facilitate their spread. It was feared that facial hair might be one of the mechanisms for transmission. For this reason, scientists working in an American hospital tested the faces of workers with facial and without for various bacteria and viruses. The results were astounding. Those without facial hair were 3x more likely to be harboring MRSA on their cleanly shaved face than those with facial hair. Talk about a plot twist.
Those without facial hair were 3x more likely to be harboring MRSA on their cleanly shaved face.
Initially, these scientists did not consider that beards fought disease. Rather, they suggested that shaving invited them. Shaving causes tiny cuts in the skin, which could potentially make convenient homes for wandering pathogens. Skipping the razor could leave the skin’s natural defenses intact giving pathogens a less friendly territory to colonize.
But the bold scientists at the BBC (Yes, apparently the BBC performs medical research on the side? Ah, the British) did not stop there. They were not content with this hypothesis, oh no. The team from “Trust Me I’m a Doctor” with the help of Dr. Adam Roberts, University College London microbiologist, swabbed a large sampling of beards. Dr. Roberts then headed to the lab to see what he could grow from the cultures collected.
Dr. Roberts eventually grew over 100 different kinds of bacteria. First thought: super gross. However, he noticed that a few of these samples clearly possessed a HBIC (head bacteria in charge). In these petri dishes, a single microbe was killing all the other bacteria around it- behaving very similarly to the fungus spore that lead to the isolation of Penicillin. Roberts singled out this little bugger, and he found it to be part of the species Staphylococcus epidermidis. Most likely this gun slinging microbe produced and secreted a kind of toxin that killed off other bacteria. Roberts isolated the microbe, and he tested its effects on a particularly drug resistant strain of E. coli (one that typically causes urinary tract infections). The beardibiotic killed the E. coli mercilessly, performing far better than other commonly used antibiotics.
For surfers, beards might be able to offer protection against infection from dirty water. A clean shaven face is an open invitation for the skin infections common in the runoff from storm drains, but a beard allows the skin’s natural defenses to work at their best. Not to mention that facial fur could contain microbes to actively fight off infection. Plus, who knows, maybe your beard hosts modern medicine’s next miracle cure.
While it’s incredibly expensive and time consuming to thoroughly test an antibiotic sufficiently to bring it to market, especially as novel a one as this, Dr. Robert’s findings do lend hope to the idea that the future of medicine might be just under our noses.
