Zit Zapper: How (Good) Bacteria Could Be The Answer To Clear Skin

It’s one of the crueler realities of teendom — some kids are plagued with monster zits and problem skin, while others tend to sail through adolescence with nary a blemish.
Researchers may finally be able to explain why. Pimples, as skin experts have long known, are the result of infected and inflamed pores that are aggravated by bacteria. But not all bacteria residing in the skin are created equal, and some are more prone to causing breakouts than others.

In a study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) explored the world of the skin pore to get a deeper understanding of which species make these niches home and how they’re affected by stress and the environment. Previous studies suggested that one particular species, Propionibacterium acnes, was largely responsible for the pimples that erupt during adolescence; when researchers took samples of zits and cultured the microbial residents, P. acnes proved to be the most numerous. In addition, experiments in animals also showed that introducing P. acnes to the skin could trigger an immune response that resembled a breakout.

More