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According to scientists, your beard could save your life

Still might have poo in it, though.

According to scientists, your beard could save your life
21 January 2016

Beards have suffered a pretty bad rap over the past few months. Scientists waited until everyone grew out their face fuzz to reveal that beards contain millions of poo particles, and a recent study posited that turf-jawed men were ‘more likely to be sexist, cheat, fight and steal.'

The verdict was clear: it may look good, but it's turning you into a smelly, poo-smuggling bastard.

So praise be to the Journal of Hospital Infection, which claim that beards could actually be good for your health after all.

Their findings state that clean-shaven men are more than three times as likely to harbour methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA). According to the NHS, MRSA is a form of bacteria that's resistant to a number of widely used antibiotics.

Researchers poked and swapped the faces of 408 hospital workers' faces, from bearded to stubbly to clean-shaven, and came to the conclusion that facial hair could actively fight infection.

The report read: "Our results suggest that male hospital workers with facial hair do not harbour more potentially concerning bacteria than clean-shaven workers, and that in some instances, clean-shaven individuals are significantly more likely to be colonized with potential [hospital acquired disease-causing] pathogens."

Which is great news, but it's slightly too late; because the big beard is dead, and it was killed by former Boyzone crooner Shane Lynch.

Rest in peace beards, 2015 - 2015. It didn't need to end like this.