Featured image Alcohol leads to more oral bacteria linked to cancer and heart disease
NEW YORK, USA – The most people like well of a drink now and then.
However, researchers at the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine recently discovered that alcohol consumption affects the oral microbiome. In their study, the scientists observed that men and women who consume one or more glasses of alcohol daily have an abundance of bacteria in their mouths that are associated with periodontitis, some types of cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
Our research provides strong evidence that drinking is bad for maintaining a healthy bacterial balance in the mouth and may help explain why drinking, like smoking, leads to bacterial changes associated with cancer and chronic diseases.
Health problems associated with drinking
According to Ahn, approximately is 10% of the American adults estimated a heavy drinker. You fall into that category if you, as a woman, one or more glasses of alcohol per day consumes, and as a man two or more glasses. Ahn states that her team's research shows that the restoring balance in the 700 species of oral bacteria possibly can help to health problems caused by alcohol to prevent or even to undo.
Of the many studies to the effects of alcohol, according to the researchers, this is the first investigation that the drinking frequency and the impact on oral bacteria actually maps out.
The research was conducted 1,044 participants along, mainly white and between the 55–87 years, all part of a ongoing national cancer study. They were at the start healthy. By means of mouthwash samples to combine with data about their alcohol consumption, became the microbiome of 270 non-drinkers, 614 moderate drinkers and 160 heavy drinkers analyzed. The results showed clear differences in bacterial composition.
The imbalance in the microbiome of drinkers could possibly arise because alcoholic acids the oral area make hostile for certain bacteria. Another cause could be: the harmful by-products of alcohol breakdown, such as acetaldehyde. These are – together with toxins from tobacco – produced in the mouth by bacteria such as Neisseria.
Although the study was large enough to bacterial differences to show between drinkers and non-drinkers, according to Ahn there is a even larger group needed to differences between beer, wine, and spirits drinkers to find out. The next step is to uncover the biological mechanisms behind the influence of alcohol on the oral microbiome.
The study, titled ‘'Drinking alcohol is associated with variation in the human oral microbiome in a large study of American adults'’, was on April 24, 2018 published in the trade journal Microbiome.