Abstract
There is a skin allergy epidemic in the western world, and the rate of deterioration has increased significantly in the past 5–10 years. It is probable that there are many environmental contributing factors, yet some studies have linked it primarily to the rise in the use of synthetic chemical ingredients in modern cosmetics. Our challenge, therefore, was to find a mechanism to determine the effect these substances have on skin health, and whether they really are a primary cause of long term damage to the skin. The first problem is the lack of any definitive way to measure skin health. Motivated by the overwhelming evidence for a link between deficient gut flora and ill health, we decided to look at whether our skin microbiota could similarly be used as an indicator of skin health. Our research illustrates how microbiota diversity alone can predict whether skin is healthy or not, after we revealed a complete lack of conclusive findings linking the presence or abundance of particular species of microbe to skin problems. This phenomenon is replicated throughout nature, where high biodiversity always leads to healthy ecosystems. ‘Caveman’ skin, untouched by modern civilisation, was far different to “western” skin and displayed unprecedented levels of bacterial diversity. The less exposed communities were to western practices, the higher the skin diversity, which is clear evidence of an environmental factor in the developed world damaging skin. For the first time we propose benchmark values of diversity against which we can measure skin to determine how healthy it is. This gives us the ability to be able to predict which people are more likely to be prone to skin ailments, and start to test whether cosmetic ingredients and products are a main cause of the skin allergy epidemic.
Highlights
There is a skin allergy epidemic in the western world, and the rate of deterioration has increased significantly in the past 5–10 years
Now is the crucial role that the skin plays in overall health starting to be understood; most early literature on skin microbiota concentrates on the pathogenic roles of different types of microbiota on the skin, yet little research has been done on the influence of resident cutaneous microflora on skin health [11]
[76] is well below thatdiversity of any healthy indicating there agricultural may be a communities is well below that of any healthy community, indicating that there may be a minimum diversity level for what could be defined as “healthy skin”. This is a crucial observation minimum diversity level for what could be defined as. This is a crucial observation for our purposes as it allows us to hypothesise a simple mechanism for determining skin health and its likelihood prevent disease: if human skin microbiota diversity falls for our purposes as ittoallows usor topromote hypothesise a simple mechanism for determining skinanywhere health and its likelihood to prevent or promote disease: if human skin microbiota diversity falls anywhere
Summary
The intestinal microflora and its links to immune system function and overall health has been the subject of much research and discussion in recent years [1,2]. The bacterial colonies inhabiting the skin have been found to be crucial for defence of the host [12,13], and are suggested to only rarely become pathogenic, being commensal (harmless and very rarely associated with disease) or symbiotic (good) the majority of the time. Microbes make up part of the skin barrier, which, together with a person’s innate immunity, combine to form a delicate balance needed to maintain healthy skin If this balance is disturbed, the host becomes more susceptible to inflammatory diseases and cutaneous infections [11,20,21]. These include the physical barrier, hostile surface pH, and the “active synthesis of gene-encoded host defence molecules”
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