Bad skin? Your loved one is to blame . . .

LIVING with someone means you share more than simply the chores or household bills: you also share the bacteria on your skin.

The link is so strong that when researchers analysed skin swabs from 20 people, a computer was able to correctly identify those who lived together just by analysing the type of bacteria found on their skin.

The researchers, from the American Society for Microbiology, analysed 300 swabs from 17 sites on the volunteers’ bodies and found the strongest correlation between couples and their bacteria was on their feet.

Their work, published in mSystems, will be followed up to see how these shared bacteria impact on skin health.