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A new study has proved that presence of bacteria on skin surface helps to maintain the healthy texture of the skin.
"These germs are actually good for us," said Richard L. Gallo, professor of medicine and paediatrics, who also heads the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) dermatology division.
The study was conducted on mice and in human cell cultures by Yu Ping Lai, who is doing his post-doctoral fellowship.
"The exciting implication of Lai's work is that it provides a molecular basis to understand the 'hygiene hypothesis' and has uncovered elements of the wound repair response that were previously unknown," said Gallo.
"This may help us devise new therapeutic approaches for inflammatory skin diseases," he added.
The so-called hygiene hypothesis suggests that “lack of childhood exposure to infectious agents and germs increases our susceptibility to disease by changing how the immune system reacts to such bacterial invaders”.
The hypothesis was actually developed for explaining the reason for the lesser presence of allergies in children of large families as they had more chances to develop infections.
It is also used to explain the higher incidence of allergic diseases in industrialised countries, said an UCSD release.
These findings were published online in Nature Medicine.
