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Reuters
Members of the Detroit Derby Girls Travel Team battle The Chicago Outfit Syndicate during a women's flat track roller derby bout in Detroit, Michigan, in April 2011.
The women of roller derby are always crashing and smashing into each other, constantly trading bumps and bruises -- and at the same time, they're also trading the microscopic bugs living on their skin. That's according to a new study that used derby to investigate the way contact sports can mix up our skin microbiome.
"As a derby skater, I was always curious about the unseen ways my teammates influenced me," says Jessica Green, the director of the University of Oregon's Biology and the Built Environment Center, who co-authored the new paper, published online today in the new journal PeerJ. Green is also a former jammer - that's the skater who scores the points - with the Emerald City Roller Girls of Eugene, Ore. (Her derby name: "Thumper Biscuit," she says.)
"When I was on the track learning a new move - like 'jumping the apex' - my mind would drift to science and 'microbiome land,'" Green says. "I realized that contact sports are an ideal venue to explore if and how touching mediates the exchange of microbes among people in a group setting."
We know, even if we don't always like to remember it, that our skin is teeming with thousands of kinds of bacteria, and we also know that those microbial communities protect us from pathogens and help regulate our immune systems. But Green and her fellow researchers at the University of Oregon wanted to know more about where we get those microbes, and how those invisible bacterial communities are changed and distributed every time we touch each other.
"For years, most of what we knew about the skin microbiome came from medical studies targeting important pathogens dispersed between sick people and health care staff in a hospital setting," explains lead author James Meadow, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Oregon's Biology and the Built Environment Center. "This study enabled us to look at whole communities of microbes being passed between healthy people."
And roller derby -- where players jockey for track position by bumping upper arms, hips or, ah, "booty" (seriously, that's the official roller derby nomenclature) -- seemed like an ideal contact sport to study to find out.
"Over the years I've noticed it's hard to get folks interested in microbes. Maybe it's because you can't see microbes with the naked eye and they are also are misunderstood as being gross," says Green, whose derby past helped with planning the logistics for co-author Keith Herkert, who did the project for his undergraduate honor's project. "Adding roller derby into the mix makes microbes a lot more appealing."
Women from the Emerald City Roller Girls of Eugene, Ore.; the D.C. Roller Girls of Washington, D.C.; and the Silicon Valley Roller Girls of San Jose, Calif., participated in the study, and all skin samples were collected at the Big O Tournament in Eugene on Feb. 10, 2012. All the women were swabbed in the same small area of their upper arm, one area of the skin that is exposed and frequently bumped during a match, or "bout."
After a DNA analysis, the researchers found that teams had similar, distinct microbial communities. "For example, if we had picked a player out at random before they skated in the tournament, I probably could have told you what team she played on," Meadow says. The samples for the D.C. team, for example, contained Brevibacterim, and the samples from the Oregon skaters were similar to the surface samples taken from their home track. But after the teams competed, the hour-long bout mixed up their microbes, leaving opposing teams with more similar-looking microbial communities, the analysis found. Specifically, six different kinds of bacteria - Strepococcus, Sphingomonas, Eubacterium, Porphyromonas, Aerococcus and Methylobacterium - were shared by competing teams after, but not before, the bout.
Next, Meadow and his fellow researchers want to understand how long those similarities last, and how sharing our microbes influences our health in the long term.
As Green explains it, using roller derby is an easier-to-follow example of how we literally influence each other on a microbial level. "The people we choose to be in community with -- through sports, work, and social circles -- likely influence our personal biome in ways we never imagined," Green says.
"Our bodies are home to countless microbes that help define who we are," she continues. "Our health and well-being depend on our microbes. People that have the right cocktail of microbes on their skin, for example, are better positioned to fight off germs or pathogens, because their good microbes out-compete the bad invaders. We currently know very little about where our personal microbial communities come from. Our study suggests that our microbes come, in part, from the people we touch. "
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Um, roller derby is fake, just like pro wrestling duh!!
Perhaps it's your perception of roller derby. If you've been to one, you know it's not fake. If you think it's all about fighting, you haven't been to one. This article is not news, currency and door knobs are more likely to kill you.
Rollerderby fake? When gas was $0.75/gallon.
PeerJ, the new journal that published this supposedly "peer-reviewed" piece of junk science is about one of the worst new ideas that has come along recently.
Normally peer-reviewed journals are sponsored by medical societies or foundations, academic institutions, or schools. Many articles are submitted to these journals, but only the ones that a) pass peer review, b) pass editorial review, and c) are considered significant in the journal's scope, are published. Some journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine publish fewer than one in a hundred papers submitted. The higher the journal's "impact" the harder it is to be published in the journal. But even this has not been without problems. A recent Bayer study found that nearly two-thirds of all published findings could not be repeated or replicated using the same methodology. And your chance of getting a significant medical article published are about ten times higher if you have "positive" findings when negative findings are of just as much value scientifically.
This has not been good enough for many medical schools. Now you are seeing physician "researchers" (most MDs have zero training or skills in research, including many who are doing lots of "research") putting "mips" (meaning Mentioned In the Press) in their c.v.'s (resumes.) They are even putting the media on an equal footing as the peer-review process that has been around for centuries.
PeerJ appears to be related to that. Instead of readers and libraries paying for subscriptions to the journal, PeerJ gives it out for free. It is the article's submitters who are charged an annual "membership" fee. While this could work in theory, it leaves the door open to even more junk science than Nancy Snyderman ever dreamed of. If a person pays for a "membership" it is reasonable for them to expect that the peer-review/editorial process will cause them to always be published. The journal claims it is not so, saying that this will be taken care of by publishing the peer reviews right next to the article.
While the management of PeerJ says that the journal will be a high-impact journal in the future, it is more likely to become a sieve, retaining only "members" only who can't be published anywhere else, and having all others drop the "membership" when their papers are not published.
This article is a great example of why PeerJ is a work of trash. Who ever thought that this was a good thing to investigate? It is a study in search of a question. Does anyone really care about the transmission of skin diseases among roller derby skaters? Has there been a demand in themedical community for this knowledge? Are there more pressing medical issues to be studied? Does it bother anyone that this "research" was done with friends, with too small a sample to have statistical significance, and was analyzed with "R" a freebie piece of junk software?
But this is exactly the kind of thing that the media eat up. Remember all those hundreds of "cures" and "treatments" for cancer and other diseases that have been reported in the media then never heard from again? And advertisers for drugs and other for-profit services and items really like this kind of throwaway publication. PeerJ claims to be modeled after the often-critisized PLOS-ONE. In reality it is modeled after the "community newspapers" that have pretty much disappeared these days (thankfully.)
But the most valuable service PeerJ is its reprint service. A "scholar" can buy a "membership" to PeerJ, then pay them a "fee" to p[ublish an article. Then they can have massive amounts of reprints made. These can be handed out and will appear at first glance to be from a reputable journal.
It would probably be a good rule of thumb to ignore any "scientific" finding that was published in PeerJ.
It's far from fake. I've got 3 friends who participate in one of our local teams and they have gotten some injuries from sprained ankles, wrists and fingers to breaking something to cuts and bruises. None of those injuries are fake. Maybe you should try running with the girls in your town and see how "fake" it is.
I would like to experiment a little with a roller derby gal or two myself. You know just to see what we actually exchange while um ... bumping.
ASure - unfortunately most of the rollerderby girls I know of in our local teams are not your type, or better stated...you're not their type.
While I think the study in question is pretty silly (who's really surprised that rubbing one sweaty arm against another sweaty arm is going to spread that sweaty bacteria around), I appreciate that NBC at least chose an appropriate, up-to-date picture. I was disappointed to see NPR's coverage of this story included a 9 year old photo of one skater accidentally (she appears to be off balance) grabbing another skater's breast.
Now can we all just agree that the solution to the whole bacteria-trading situation is just a nice, hot shower?
How to cut down on nasty microbes? Wash your pads ladies. The smell-side of derby can be eliminated with good housekeeping!
Slow news day. Go Beat City Bombers!! (Nampa Idaho Derby Team)
Who cares another program wasting government money. What a stupid "sport" or lets say Acting.
This is not a waste of "government money'" In fact, no taxpayer money was involved at all. The silly "study" was designed, conducted, analyzed, written up, submitted, and approved by an editor, J.L. Green, of PeerJ. What's even worse is that it was "peer-reviewed" by other editors and employees of PeerJ. Can you spell "conflict of interest"?
The University of Oregon isn't funded by taxpayers?
In addition to direct funding, aren't students paying their tuition and fees with subsidized grants and loans?
And soon, we'll all be subsidizing roller girls' Obamacare plans!
So what's the point? This sounds like another 'Liberal Moment' where they take one activity people engage in and focus the microscope on it, not to find bacteria per se, but to build up some case why people should not be allowed to do it.
Then impose a ban on it- just like sugary drinks. If people touching skin is so bad for you then how the heck did we all come into existence!? And remain existing?
This is the most worthless study performed to date! Nice waste of those taxpayer dollars for propaganda purposes.
Read the article twice. Still looking for bit about banning roller derby. Might try ratcheting down your commie-dar a notch or two.
some people seem unable to do anything without filtering their world view through preconceived notions. profreedom seems to be a poster child for such limitations: "Liberal Moment" too funny! as a leftist, quasi-liberal, and all 'round sports fan, i don't think your notion holds water. actually, i used to really like to watch roller derby on the oval, banked track. there may have been scripted ideas in the action, but the actual athleticism was undeniable.
again, a chuckle. "Liberal Moment." it must be sad to have to filter your world while peering through myopic lenses.
@ProFreedom,
Yoy lied about the taxpayer dollars. The experiment was designed, conducted, analyzed and submitted by one J.L. Green, one of the editors of a brand new junk science "journal." No funding from anywhere except the fake journal was used, let along NIH funding. And the NIH will not fund junk like this ever!
There is nothing in the article or the paper it references about banning roller derby. You lied about that as well. In face, the author of the paper is a former amateur roller derby player. The "peer-reviewers" were other employees of PeerJ.
This is just junk science that was created for the sole purpose of having something to print in a brand new for-profit junk science journal where people who can't get published anywhere else can pay and have their articles published.
But you missed why it is really bad --- far worse than wasting taxpayer money, the article is a serious conflict of interest and the author should probably be banned from all involved from any future NIH-funded research in addition to bringing down sanctions against the IRB at the University of Oregon.
Well, do yourself a favor and check it out for yourself; Derby is far from fake. I serve as medic (derby name Gyro) and the skaters are real, the action is real, and the injuries are real. Check out a bout near you and see for yourself. I would echo another post above, good housekeeping! Wash your derby stuff after every practice and after every bout.
As well as Athletes in football, basketball, baseball, boxing, ultimate fighting, wrestling..........
My son wrestles for his High School...them mats are full of nasty things...
Both of my sons were high school wrestlers I can say at our school the mats got cleaned every night after practice the boys used skin shield and showered with Hybicleanse soap the same type surgeons use to fight just this problem. We still ended up with the occasional case of ringworm.
I hope my taxes didn't pat for this study.
Unfortunately we have no way of knowing which studies our taxes are patting.
well-crafted reply, melissa.
@Melissa Dahl,
Absolutely WRONG! Every published study includes a section that tells who funded it. And you bought it hook line and sinker! It was designed, conducted, analyzed, and written up by the same person --- one of the editors of PeerJ. It was conducted on the person's friends and was extremely shoddy at best. Some of the funding came from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, though I am frankly surprised at that since they are generally too reputable to let this serious an ethical lapse slide by them.
And honestly, Ms Dahl, I would contend that the extent of the conflict of interest was so blatant that it is a clear violation of joiurnalistic ethics as well as a failure by the UO IRB. I would strongly suggest that you re-examine the PeerJ source and retract the article.
And if you do not know how to find out which studies our tax dollar is funding, just ask. Almost any scientist that receives any government funding can tell you how it is done and it is extremely easy. A third-grader could tell you who funded any given study.
But as long as you people try to piggyback on junk science like this, you will have no credibility. If you or NBC has any affiliation with PeerJ, you should be fired for not disclosing it and fibbing about finding out the funding source.
Every published paper, including this one is required to disclose its funding and to disclose any conflicts of interest.
aren't we exchanging microbes all the time? handshakes? door knobs? rubbing elbows on the subway? So in summation: yeah so?
I watched Roller Derby as a Kid. Went to a couple of events too. I miss the high banked oval of days gone by. I sure wish the would bring those tracks back but I know they wont. The will probably say it's to dangerous.
So, NBC News, are you proposing we all just climb into hazmat suits and never touch anything ever again? Part of the problem is that we have become such a germ-phobic society that bacteria/viruses are getting stronger and stronger. Look at the deadly bacteria popping up now which medical science has no way of destroying. If this keeps up, the Black Plague will look like the common flu in comparison.
That's an interesting story. I wondered when what their pads contain because they smell like something horrible. My wife plays Lethal PathoJen plays for the Hard Knox Roller Girls and she takes a lot of steps to get her gear fairly clean. I'm surprised to not see Staph Aureus as a bacteria picked up. At least no MRSA.Good article!
www.rollerderbydesign.com
I'm surprised they didn't find staph aureus! My wife LethalPathoJen plays for the Hard Knox Roller Girls and she constantly is cleaning her pads
www.rollerderbydesign.com