Most people take oral probiotics to promote the health of their intestinal microbiome, but it’s now evident that topical probiotics can also benefit the microbiome of the biggest organ of all: the skin. In the past there have been studies that explain how taking oral probiotic supplements could benefit your skin from the inside out, but researchers are beginning to take a new perspective when it comes to probiotics from the outside in. The have begun investigating the possibilities of topically transplanting probiotics directly into the skin microbiome to treat different skin diseases. A study from Myles et.al., 2018 explained how large populations of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) were found in areas affected by atopic dermatitis (AD), and potentially worsening the symptoms. In hopes that they could combat the symptoms with a probiotic for the skin, they decided to try transplanting an “anti-S.aureus” bacteria, Roseomonas mucosa (R. mucosa), to a patient suffering from AD. They found that it was only when R. mucosa was transferred from a healthy volunteer to the affected area of an AD patient, that S. aureus populations decreased along with pruritis, inflammation, redness, and overall intensity of AD symptoms.1 The results of this study highlight how as researchers uncover how different probiotics affect the microbiome of the skin, they can figure out ways to utilize them in creating different treatments for a variety of skin disorders.
References
- JCI Insight. 2018 May 3;3(9). pii: 120608. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.120608.
