According to a new study, you can keep your teeth clean to avoid the misery of arthritis flare-ups.
Bacteria associated with gum disease can cause severe joint pain that worsens rheumatoid arthritis if they enter the bloodstream, according to researchers at Rice University in Texas.
Biologist Vicky Yao made the connection while examining blood samples from patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s immune system attacks healthy cells in the joints of the body, causing swelling and inflammation. RA can also cause heart, lung and eye problems.
Rice University computational biologist Vicky Yao (pictured) found traces of bacteria associated with periodontitis in samples from patients with rheumatoid arthritis
Discovering the link between gum disease and RA could help develop therapies for the latter, an inflammatory autoimmune disease that attacks the lining of joints and can cause heart, lung and eye problems
Establishing a link between oral bacteria and arthritis flare-ups could pave the way for new treatments not only for RA, but other diseases as well.
Dr. Principal investigator Vicky Yao said: “Data collected in experiments from living organisms or cells or tissues grown in Petri dishes is very important to confirm hypotheses, but at the same time these data can contain more information than we can immediately. ” . derive from it.’
The results of dr. Yao was the catalyst for a series of successive experiments with rheumatologist dr. Dana Orange and Dr. Bob Darnell, a physician at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Yao said: “Orange, in collaboration with Darnell, collected data from patients with arthritis on a regular basis while also monitoring them when the flare-ups occur.
“The idea was that looking back at this data would reveal a pattern that would provide clues about the cause of the arthritis.”
The study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, found that germs associated with gum disease were constantly changing before they flared up.
In addition to providing information on how to treat flare-ups of arthritis, her research opens the door to developing better therapies for other diseases, such as cancer. The method of monitoring microbes for disease may be useful in learning more about certain types of cancer.
The of Dr. The Yao-led team found that the germs in the samples, which were constantly changing in patients before the flare-up, were largely linked to gum disease.
Dr. Yao explained, “I was curious about this tool that can detect microbes in human samples.
“One of the things that came up in the discussion was how cool it would be if you could prescribe some kind of mouthwash to help prevent rheumatoid arthritis flare-ups.”
The breakthrough came by accident, Dr. Yao.
“While I was working on this project, I attended a talk that I thought was really cool because it suggested that you can actually find traces of microbes in the data that are being ignored or thrown away.
“You’re looking at a human sample, but you’re getting a snapshot of the microbes floating around. It fascinated me.”
Discovering meaningful information in data that would normally be ignored or discarded inspired her to take a similar approach when looking at data from cancer patients.
Unhealthy bacteria in the mouth have links to autoimmune diseases
Researchers at the Academic Center for Dentistry in Amsterdam discovered a similar link between oral health and the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis. People with RA and those at risk of getting it had higher levels of two types of bacteria — including one known to cause chronic inflammation in the body.
She said: “I was really interested in what else we could find for microbial signatures in human samples.
“Now we do something similar when dealing with cancer. The hope here is that if we find some interesting microbial or viral signatures associated with cancer, we can identify productive experimental directions to pursue.
“For example, if a tumor creates a breeding ground for specific microbes that we recognize, then we may be able to use that knowledge to diagnose the cancer earlier or in a less invasive or expensive way.
“And if experiments confirm a causal relationship between a certain virus or a certain bacterium and a type of cancer, then of course it can be useful for therapy.”
It is well known that certain microbes cause cancer, such as B. the human papillomavirus and cervical cancer. But for the vast majority of cancers, the connection is not clear.
Dr Yao added: “When we did the same exercise to examine cervical cancer tumor samples, we consistently detected the virus.
“I am very interested in using computational approaches to bridge the gap between available experimental data and ways to interpret it. Computational analysis is a way to interpret data and prioritize hypotheses for clinicians or experimental scientists to test.”
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
