Hi (Dan)
I'm trying to find out whether benzoyl peroxide kills Staphylococcus aureus and epidermidis. It's not particularly easy or obvious from searching Google. Just wondering if anyone on here (perhaps Dan) has read any studies which conclusively answer this question?
We all know that Benzoyl Peroxide effectively kills the acne bacteria Propionibacterium acnes, but Staphylococcus is also an acne causing bacteria and plays a particularly important role in the formation of pustules and inflammation.
This is a tough one. You need to remember that both staph and propioni are both gram + bacteria thus generally speaking, they should have similar treatments. But, you have to remember that p.acnes is anaerobic which means it cannot grow in an oxygenated environment. This is why bp is effective, it oxygenates our skin making it difficult for p.acnes to live.
On the other hand, staph aureus is facultative anaerobe. This just means it can grow in both both an oxygenated environment and a non-oxygenated environment. Therefore, bp is not effective against staph.
The most common modality to kill a staph infection is to use penicillin. Penicillin is also very effective against acne bacteria. The only problem is that there are many side effects to using penicillin and bacteria tend to become resistant to penicillin extremely fast.
I hope this helps
