Mouth Bacteria Indicator Of Heart Disease
By Dr. Brian McDonough, Medical Editor
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Could the bacteria in your mouth be associated with heart risk?
University of Buffalo researchers who compared oral bacteria from 386 heart attack patients with oral bacteria from 840 without found two species of bacteria are more common among heart attack patients.
Overall, heart patients tended to have higher levels of bacteria in their mouths of two types; tannerella forsynthesis and prevotella intermedia. They were statistically linked to heart attack.
This type of information may seem strange - even shocking - but we know that there is a very definite association between bacteria, inflammation and various health conditions, and heart disease is one of them.
