Which microbes lives in and on your skin?

Have you ever thought about what is living in and on your skin? The skin does not only consist of living skin cells that die within a few weeks into dead skin flakes. These skin cells are an important part of our first line defense, or our natural border and sometimes even frontline between our body and the outside world.

The resident and transient microbes of the skin microbiome - drawing by Marcelline Goyen

We also have the necessary permanent non-human residents (resident microbes) and passing guests, all from the microbial world. Think of bacteria, fungi, yeasts, viruses, but also parasites such as the Demodex mite. The latter in particular makes me itch spontaneously when I think about it, does it do you too?

Dust mite and demodex mites on your skin - drawing by Marcelline Goyen

Most of our skin microbes are 'good guys'. They live on our skin and - in normal healthy conditions - they protect our skin and do not cause any harm. Among those passing (transient) guests there are also some 'uninvited guests' who can cause us considerable inconvenience, not only on and in the skin itself but also within our body. These guests we call 'the bad guys' as they can harm our skin microbiome, our skin and our whole body. These bad guys can make us (very) sick and even kill us. For that reason alone, it is so important to know what lives on our skin and what the composition of our skin microbiome is like. Because an imbalance in that microbiome can quickly be the start of a series of increasing problems. Even in our microbiome, prevention is still better than cure.

And how do we take care of all those good (resident) microorganisms that belong to the skin microbiome? In fact, you can only try to answer that question if you a) know which microbes belong to the skin microbiome, b) how these microbes influence eachother and c) what the properties of those microbes are, d) under what conditions they can survive well without damaging their host (human skin), and e) what do those microbes actually live on, so what is their source of nutrition and f) how can we humans influence our microbes?

If you want to know more about these microbes and the answers to these questions, read my upcoming English book about ;'he skin-gut axis' (ps the title is not sure yet), hopefully published in the fall of 2024 and then available via www.skin-gut-axis.com.

Marcelline Goyen Author & skin gut therapist BHs Zaltbommel - The Netherlands (NL)

References:

1. Goyen MTM. 'De huid-darm connectie' book (2019) - Marcelline Goyen - ISBN 9789463456210

2. Goyen MTM. 'De wonderlijke samenwerking tussen huid & darm' book (2023) - Marcelline Goyen - ISBN 9789464812329