Higher Prevalence of the Periodontal Pathogen Selenomonas noxia among Pediatric and Adult Patients May Be Associated with Overweight and Obesity

Abstract

New evidence has suggested that oral and gut microflora may have significant impacts on the predisposition, development, and stability of obesity in adults over time—although less is known about this phenomenon in children. Compared with healthy-weight controls, overweight and obese adult patients are now known to harbor specific pathogens, such as Selenomonas noxia (S. noxia), that are capable of digesting normally non-digestible cellulose and fibers that significantly increase caloric extraction from normal dietary intake. To evaluate this phenomenon, clinical saliva samples (N = 122) from subjects with a normal BMI (18–25) and a BMI over 25 (overweight, obese) from an existing biorepository were screened using qPCR. The prevalence of S. noxia in samples from normal-BMI participants were lower (21.4%) than in overweight-BMI (25–29; 46.1%) and obese-BMI (30 and above; 36.8%) samples—a strong, positive correlation that was not significantly affected by age or race and ethnicity. These data strongly suggest that S. noxia may be intricately associated with overweight and obesity among patients, and more research will be needed to determine the positive and negative feedback mechanisms that may be responsible for these observations as well as the interventions needed to remove or reduce the potential effects of this oral pathogen.

Analysis of Pediatric Pulpotomy, Pulpectomy, and Extractions in Primary Teeth Revealed No Significant Association with Subsequent Root Canal Therapy and Extractions in Permanent Teeth: A Retrospective Study

“…In order for future studies to account for these variations, it is important to discuss the limitations of this study. First, this is a retrospective study of previously collected data and may have bias intrinsic to the study sample due to the nature of this low-income, predominantly minority clinic population, which may face significant challenges and barriers to health care access and oral health prevention [ 22 , 39 ]. In addition, the reduced nature of some of the procedures performed during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been due to changes in protocols for dental care, which reduced the number of available openings for treatment, as well as changes in patient or parent behaviors, including delays in care due to safety concerns [ 40 , 41 ].…”

“…Finally, to determine the association between primary tooth pulpotomy, pulpectomy, or extraction and subsequent permanent tooth root canal therapy (RCT) or extraction, the odds ratio (OR) and relative risk (RR) were also calculated, as previously described [ 22 ], using GraphPad Prism 9 software (Boston, MA, USA). The relative risk describes the risk of an event (e.g., permanent tooth RCT or extraction) in one group (those with previous primary tooth pulpotomy, pulpectomy, or extraction) versus the risk of the event in another group (those without previous primary tooth pulpotomy, pulpectomy, or extraction).…”