Candidal infections and populations of Candida albicans in mouths of diabetics.

Abstract

SUMMARY The prevalence of oral candidosis and the frequency of isolation of Candida albicans and its density and distribution have been determined in the mouths of 50 patients with diabetes mellitus and 50 healthy volunteers matched for age, sex, dental status and smoking habits. Three of the diabetic patients were found to have a chronic oral candidosis. According to an imprint culture technique, the oral carrier rate and density of C albicans were both higher in the diabetic group as a whole than in the control subjects. Smoking was associated with an increased prevalence of the yeast in diabetes mellitus. Diabetics wearing dentures had higher candidal density than those without a prosthesis. No differences in candidal status could be detected according to the degree of control of diabetes, mode of treatment, duration of diabetes or the patient's age. Local factors such as smoking and the presence of dentures, particularly when worn continuously, interact with diabetes mellitus in promoting candidal colonisation of the mouth. Attention to these predisposing factors could reduce the incidence of thrush in diabetics.Although Winner and Hurley' state that patients with diabetes mellitus are susceptible to thrush, no clinical survey of diabetics to establish the incidence of candidal infection in the mouth has been done. Moreover, previous accounts do not agree as to whether Candida albicans iS23 or is not45 more prevalent in the mouths of diabetics than in nondiabetics. These conflicting reports may reflect the fact that local factors such as denture wearing and smoking which significantly influence oral candidal populations6 7 were not considered by most previous investigators. The method of sampling also seems important. Earlier workers sampled only saliva34 but if many oral sites are investigated using imprint cultures, C albicans can be isolated only from the tongue in as many as one-third of dentate carriers.7 Accordingto Oddset al.,8the degree of control of the diabetes significantly influenced the extent of oral yeast colonisation but again local factors were ignored.Our study describes the prevalence of candidal infection in the mouths of diabetic patients. With the imprint culture technique, the frequency of isolation of Calbicans and its intraoral density and distribution were assessed in the diabetic patients and age-and

Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in Human β-Defensin 1: High-Throughput SNP Assays and Association with Candida Carriage in Type I Diabetics and Nondiabetic Controls

“…This mechanism may be an effective backup system in the event of failure of the antiadhesion or agglutination properties of saliva or the fungicidal actions of histatins (36). Our results concur with those of others that rate of Candida carriage is greater in diabetic subjects than in nondiabetic subjects (12,13,15,17,35). In our study the mean level of candidal carriage in diabetic subjects was somewhat lower than that detected by other investigators but may reflect differences in collection, sample handling, and/or colony counting.…”

“…Oral candidiasis is the result of yeast overgrowth and penetration of the epithelial mucosal protective barrier and is evident in patients with various conditions that exhibit immunosuppression including diabetes. Diabetic patients have an increased susceptibility to Candida and other fungal infections (1,37) and, specifically, increased rates of oral candidal infections (15,21,35,42,43). The etiology for this occurrence has only been hypothesized and has been related to metabolic changes, insulin levels, medications, neutrophil suppression, and behavioral variables.…”

The Effect of Dietary Carbohydrates on the In-vitro Adhesion of Candida Albicans to Epithelial Cells

“…Also, Olsen and Birkeland (1976) found that repeated sucrose rinses initiated and aggravated chronic atrophic candidosis, which is the most prevalent form of oral candidal infection, commonly seen in elderly denture wearers. Also, it is known that the oral carriage of Candida in diabetics is higher than in normal individuals (Weinstein et al, 1960;Barlow and Chattaway, 1969;Tapper-Jones et al, 1981) and slightly higher concentrations of salivary glucose in diabetics may induce proliferation of Candida (Knight and Fletcher,197 1). Therefore, our results partially explain the clinical relationship reported by other workers between candidosis and intra-oral concentration of glucose and sucrose.…”

A Study on clinical patterns of mucocutaneous candidiasis in immunosuppressed patients

“…All patients with oral candidiasis had type II diabetes and their blood sugar levels were between 200-290 mg/dl. Tapper Jones et al, Aly et al and Abu Elteen et al reported the prevalence of yeast carriage in diabetic individual to reach upto 54% [9][10][11][12]. The relationship between the blood glucose level and carriage rate of Candida is controversial.…”