A virus can 'cure' acne without making you ill and it's coming to skincare

Experts have found a virus that clears acne, by killing the bacteria that causes it - and what's more, it doesn’t make humans sick.

The skincare industry has boomed in recent years, with many people on a quest to get clear, glowing, wrinkle-free skin. But while there are plenty of influencers on social media pushing certain trends, not all are scientifically-proven.

However, experts have discovered a virus that actually infects the bacteria on our skin (which in turn causes certain types of acne), known as bacteriophage, or more commonly, phage.

Now an acne-targeting skincare company, Phyla, is using phage in its products to target and kill the acne-causing bacteria that are in our skin.

“Phages are the most abundant micro-organism on the planet. In nature, they keep the planet healthy by killing harmful bacteria. They’re also found on healthy skin,” the company website explains. “Phyla’s patented phage technology has the superpower of killing only acne-causing bacteria while nurturing the skin’s natural microbiome.”

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Speaking to the New York Post, CEO of Phyla, Neil Giugno, explained: “What the phages do is they get into the pore and look for that specific bacteria, and then they poke it and release genetic material into that bacteria and neutralize it.”

Giugno also explained that acne is typically not down to lifestyle, but down to the number of phages on a person’s skin.

He said: “[Acne is] not due to the amount of exercise you do or the pizza that you eat. It’s correlated to the amount of phages that you have living in your microbiome, and those phages are working hard to kill and suppress that bacteria to levels that are low enough that they don’t cause inflammation, and therefore cause the physical acne.”

The company has the financial backing of Ryan Reynolds, who has recently been helping his wife Blake Lively fight a counter-lawsuit that was brought against the pair by Lively’s It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni.

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