Mouth bacteria can cause cancer

Risingbd Desk: Brushing your teeth doesn't just prevent cavities, it could also help lower your cancer risk.

Research has shown that the bacteria in our mouths can indicate our risk for different forms of cancer.

Although the link isn't directly understood, it's believed that the bacteria travels into the bloodstream and enters different organs, where they infect the tissue.

Several studies has found links to breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, esophageal cancer and bowel cancer.

By further studying this connection, scientists one day hope to be able to tell a person what his or her cancer risk is based only on the bacteria present in his or her body.

According to Dr Jiyoung Ahn, an associate professor of epidemiology at New York University School of Medicine, research into the body's microbiome is relatively new.

In fact, scientists have discovered only within the past five years that 80 percent of the bacteria found in the human body can't be grown in a lab dish, she told Live Science.

And while other factors play a role in changing the oral microbiome, including smoking and drinking alcohol, Dr Ahn says she hopes it can give people information about what they can do to lower their risk.

Here, we reveal what germs hiding in your gums and teeth can trigger potentially deadly diseases:

Research has found that people who have higher levels of one type of oral bacteria, P gingivalis, had a 60 percent higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer than those with lower levels.

And another bacterium, A actinomycetemcomitans, was linked to a more than doubled risk of pancreatic cancer.

Both are known to be a cause of periodontitis, a severe form of gum disease.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, in part because it's very difficult to diagnose at an early stage.

Dr Ahn says she hopes that, in the future, doctors will be able to identify the cancer by just looking at a person's oral bacteria.

A 2016 study has suggested that the mouth bacteria that causes bleeding gums could raise your risk for bowel cancer.

Scientists say the bug, called fusobacterium, can travel via the blood to the bowel where they could trigger cancer or worsen existing tumors.

It's been found to be hundreds of times more common in cancerous tumors than in normal cells.

Researchers say that not only can these microbes make pre-cancerous growths in the bowel turn cancerous, they can also make any existing tumors in the bowel grow larger. 

Studies have found differences in the oral microbiomes of people with esophageal cancer compared with those of people who do not have the disease.

Dr Ahn said people with esophageal cancer tend to have much lower levels of a type of bacteria called proteobacteria.

Proteobacteria are associated with the imbalance of the lower reproductive tract of women as well as inflammation.

And last year, researchers at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry, in Kentucky, found that P gingivalis was present in 61 percent of patients with esophageal cancer.

There are two likely explanations: either the cancer cells are a preferred area for P gingivalis to thrive or the infection of the bacteria facilitates the development of esophageal cancer.

A 2015 study from the University of Buffalo in New York has found the bacteria associated with gum disease can trigger breast cancer.Studying more than 73,000 postmenopausal women, scientists said those with the disease were 14 percent more likely to develop breast cancer.

Scientists believe that bacteria from the mouth enter the circulatory system and they affect breast tissues.

Researchers also found that in women who had quit smoking within the past 20 years, those with gum disease were found to have a 36 percent higher risk of breast cancer.  

Source: The Mail




Risingbd/April 5, 2017/Mukul