Skin Hotspots in Ears & Toes - Safe Haven for Harmful Germs

The skin behind the ears and in the space between the toes can host an assortment of harmful germs that can cause a variety of skin diseases (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Spatial diversity of the skin bacteriome

Go to source). The study was done by a team at George Washington University (GW) in the US and was published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

Hidden Hotspots in Ears & Toes Nuture Unhealthy Microbes

The study implies that the composition of the skin microbiome varies across dry, moist, and oily regions of the skin. "My grandmother always instructed the kids in the family to scrub behind the ears, between the toes, and in the belly button. So our team decided to test what we call 'the Grandmother Hypothesis',” said Keith Crandall, Director of the Computational Biology Institute and Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at GW.

"These hotspots are normally washed less often compared to the skin on the arms or legs and thus may harbor different types of bacteria," Crandall added.

For the study, the team designed an innovative genomics course and then unleashed a team of 129 students who were taught to collect their own data by swabbing certain moist and oily hotspots, behind the ears, between the toes, and in the naval as well as from control dry areas like the calves and forearms. Then they extracted and sequenced the DNA in the skin samples in order to compare the microbes living in the hotspots to those in the control regions.

The researchers found that forearms and calves which are often cleaned more thoroughly at bath time had a greater diversity and thus potentially a healthier collection of microbes compared to the samples taken in the hotspots.

"When certain trouble-making microbes take over the microbiome they can shift the balance away from health and if the microbiome tips in favor of detrimental microbes, skin diseases like eczema or acne can be the result," Crandall added.

Reference:

1. Spatial diversity of the skin bacteriome - (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1257276/full)

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