Dental Biofilm Remains Much The Same as 1,000 Years Ago

Dental Biofilm Remains Much the Same as
1,000 Years Ago

Modern hygiene and dental health practices have significantly improved the oral health status of humankind. Yet despite these advances, Christina Warinner, PhD, of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, and an international research team have found the same microorganisms that cause periodontal diseases today were also present in the calculus of 1,000-year-old teeth. Their findings were published online in late February in Nature Genetics in a paper titled, “Pathogens and Host Immunity in the Ancient Human Oral Cavity.”

Warinner and the team analyzed dental calculus on medieval German dentition, using advanced technology to extract DNA samples from the calculus and evaluate proteins for a more complete picture of people from this era. The results revealed the presence of the same disease-causing microorganisms that are responsible for 13% of periodontal diseases today.

“What makes dental calculus so unique is that it acts as a long-term reservoir of the oral microbiome,” notes Warinner. “This allows us to investigate health and disease.” Furthermore, because calculus provides a record of the oral cavity’s microflora, it can be used to draw conclusions about the health of individual subjects, as well as obtain information concerning their lifestyle.

Studying the oral microbiome is critical to understanding the evolutionary history of human health and disease in order to better inform modern medicine, reports Frank Ruhli, MD, PhD, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zürich, who participated in the study. Further investigation into these oral disease-causing microorganisms is warranted to better understand their development and negative oral health consequences, despite modern improvements to lifestyle, diet, medication, and oral health care.

Hygiene Connection E-Newsletter

March 2014