Alcohol alters oral bacteria and encourages disease

A recent study has found that alcoholic drinks may change your mouth’s microbiome and create a ripple effect throughout your body. Alcohol was found to encourage the growth of harmful bacteria in the mouth and also stunt the development of good probiotic bacteria.

“Our study offers clear evidence that drinking is bad for maintaining a healthy balance of microbes in the mouth and could help explain why drinking, like smoking, leads to bacterial changes already tied to cancer and chronic disease,” the study noted, reported Medical News Today website.

Disease And Alcohol

One potential direct result of drinking alcohol is its effect on the neural receptors of the central nervous system, which regulated blood pressure regulation. An unbalanced nervous system can lead to hypertension.

Alcohol consumption can set in motion underlying mechanisms and increase the risk of developing severe medical problems such as heart disease, cancer, and dementia. The research related to the link between alcohol consumption and oral bacteria pointed alcohol’s impact on the microbiome: how alcohol disrupts the body’s sensitive mechanisms, which seriously affect one’s resistance to diseases.

The Alcohol-Bacterial Microbiome Connection

The medical study carried out by New York University School of Medicine’s Jiyoung Ahn and team studied how alcohol changed the bacterial microbiome or bacterial microorganisms’ environment in the mouth, which can ultimately lead to other maladies.

The study was conducted on 1,044 healthy American adult participants, aged 55–87, who were enrolled through the American Cancer Society (ACS) Cancer Prevention Study II and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. Their initial oral samples and drinking patterns data were meticulously stored, and three categories were noted—nondrinkers (270), moderate drinkers (614), and heavy drinker (160). Based on this information, the researchers analyzed the data to figure out what oral bacteria thrive and where.

The researchers studied the biological samples and used these results with the data on the drinking habits of participants to find out which bacteria grew in the oral microbiota of people who drank and those who do. They also studied which bacteria were blocked from developing.

The findings were published in the journal Microbiome. “Our study offers clear evidence that drinking is bad for maintaining a healthy balance of microbes in the mouth and could help explain why drinking, like smoking, leads to bacterial changes already tied to cancer and chronic disease,” said Ahn.

The scientists found the overall production of three strains of harmful oral bacteria namely Bacteroidales, Actinomyces, and Neisseria to increase consistently if the study’s participant consumed alcohol. They also found that the overall sustenance of healthy oral bacteria like the Lactobacillales to decrease drastically if the study’s participant drank alcohol. “Drinkers had decreased abundance of order Lactobacillales […] Other taxa [bacterial species], some of which are potentially pathogenic, were enriched with higher alcohol consumption,” reported Medical News Today.

Research On Alcohol-Microbiome Link Can Improve Disease Prevention

Alcohol increases harmful bacteria count, which researchers say can cause heart diseases, cancers of the head, neck, and gastrointestinal tract. “Evidence indicates that oral microbiota dysbiosis [imbalance] is related to local oral diseases, such as periodontitis and dental caries and potentially to systemic diseases, including gastrointestinal cancers and cardiovascular disease.”

However, Ahn said that more research is required to understand how various types of alcoholic drinks separately impact the development of oral bacteria. People who only drink beer, wine, or just strong liquor may have diverse oral microbiota.

“Future studies,” the authors add, “should also investigate the impact of alcohol drinking on the metagenomic (functional) content of the oral microbiome. Improved understanding of the causes and health impacts of oral dysbiosis [bacterial imbalance] can lead to microbiome-targeted approaches for disease prevention,” noted the authors of the study.

Ahn recommends a reduction in the number of alcoholic drinks that we consume as it could reverse and even prevent the damage due to unhealthy oral microbiota.