From the Stranger-Than-Fiction Department: New research suggests a man's beard contains disease-fighting bacteria that may aid the fight against antibiotic resistance.

A team of British researchers — led by Dr. Adam Roberts, a microbiologist at University College London — who has spent the last few years attempting to uncover new medicines that could overcome drug resistance - an issue that has become a major public health concern, Medical News Today reports.

For the study, conducted as part of the UK BBC show "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor," the team swabbed the beards of 20 men and, from the samples, grew more than 100 strains of bacteria over a four-week period.

Among the strains the researchers identified was a bacterium called Staphylococcus epidermidis that attacked and killed a form of drug-resistant E. coli.

"What we do is grid out the individual bacteria on an agar plate which has been pre-inoculated with an indicator strain," Dr. Roberts explained to Reuters. "And then we see if that indicator strain can grow right up to the individual colonies from the beards or from anywhere else that we've got these bacteria from."

The researchers were surprised to find that around a quarter of the bacteria grown from the beard samples were able to kill the indicator strains, "showing that they actually produce antibiotics themselves," according to Dr. Roberts.

The researchers said just as some bacteria have evolved to develop drug resistance, other bacteria have evolved to produce toxins that can kill drug-resistant species.

Every year, more than 2 million Americans develop antibiotic-resistant infections, and more than 23,000 people die as a result of such infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the results are likely to have caused many men to become clean shaven, some researchers claimed there was no substance to the findings, noting that most of the bacteria identified in the study are also found on our skin.