As the use of antibiotics leads to resistance to some bacteria, scientists strive to find new medicines to treat emerging, mutating infections. And it looks like hipsters may have the answer.
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The bacteria found in men's beards may lead to new antibiotics, Reuters reports.
"What we've done as a human species is to basically coat the world in antibiotics by our overuse and inappropriate use," Reuters quoted microbiologist Dr. Adam Roberts from University College London (UCL) as saying.
"The overprescription of antibiotics for conditions that don't require them is spurring resistant mutations leading to so-called superbugs" that can evade the medicines designed to kill them.
While there have only been a few new antibiotics developed in recent decades, "one surprising source of hope has recently emerged -- beards".
The microbiologists' discovery came after as they researched the theory that most beards contain traces of faeces. Mercifully, their swabs from the beards of 20 men disproved that myth but their work came up with evidence of 100 bacteria growths, Reuters said.
They then ran bacteria lab tests and found the so-called isolates "were quite capable of killing the indicator strain that we have; showing that they actually produce antibiotics themselves."
Of about a hundred bacteria isolates taken from the 20 beards, one in four showed antibiotic activity against an indicator strain.
Very few new antibiotics have been developed since the 'golden age' of discovery in the 1950s and 60s.
Resistance to antibodies and microbes could kill an additional 10 million people a year and cost as much as $US100 trillion ($142 trillion) in 30 years if it is not brought under control. The UCL scientists' work is part of a global effort to find new antibiotics before the crisis becomes more desperate, the report said.