“This is the first study of its kind to examine the relationship between oral health and e-cigarette use over time. Understanding how e-cigarettes and the chemicals they contain are altering oral microbiomes and disrupting the balance of microorganisms in the mouth is just beginning to emerge “both professors of molecular pathobiology at the New York University College of Dentistry, Deepak Saxena and Xin Li.
Nearly half of American adults over the age of 30 suffer from some form of gum disease. Gum disease can be exacerbated by smoking, but the long-term effects of using e-cigarettes, which vaporize nicotine and other chemicals, are still largely unknown, especially when it comes to oral health.
A total of 84 adults, including smokers and nonsmokers, had their oral health examined by the researchers. Two dental exams, one six months apart, were used to evaluate the presence of gum disease and collect plaque samples for bacterial analysis.
After cigarette smokers and e-cigarette users were compared, all participants had some form of gum disease. Several e-cigarette users’ gum disease had worsened after six months, according to the study’s findings.
When gum ligament and tissue separate from the surface of a tooth, resulting in receding gums, it is a sign of gum disease. Bacteria can thrive in these spaces, resulting in gum disease that is much more serious. After six months, only e-cigarette smokers — not nonsmokers or cigarette smokers — showed significantly worse clinical attachment loss in a study published in Frontiers in Oral Health.
As a result of this analysis, researchers discovered that e-cigarette users have a distinct oral microbiome from both smokers and non-cigarette users, which is consistent with findings from previous studies.
Despite the fact that all groups shared about a fifth of the bacteria types, e-cigarette users’ bacterial makeup was strikingly more similar to that of cigarette smokers than that of nonsmokers. Both smokers and vapers were found to have higher concentrations of several bacteria, such as Selenomonas, Leptotrichia, and Saccharibacteria, than nonsmokers. E-cigarette users had a higher concentration of bacteria associated with gum disease, such as Fusobacterium and Bacteroidales, in their mouths than non-users.
Six months later, researchers collected plaque samples and analyzed them for bacterial diversity, but each group maintained a distinct microbiome.
As the study’s co-author Fangxi Xu put it, “Vaping appears to be driving unique patterns in bacteria and influencing the growth of some bacteria in a manner akin to smoking, but with its own profile and risks to oral health….
An individual’s unique microbiome was found to be associated with clinical measures of gum disease and changes in the host immune environment among e-cigarette users, the researchers found In particular, cytokines—proteins that regulate the immune system—were found to be associated with different levels of vaping. Unbalanced oral bacteria may be exacerbated by certain cytokines, which increase the risk of inflammation and infection in people with gum disease.
Inflammatory cytokine TNF was found to be significantly elevated in e-cigarette users compared to non-users. Cigarette smoking has been linked to higher levels of immune suppressant cytokines like interleukin 4 (IL-4) and interleukin 1 (IL-1), whereas e-cigarette users had lower levels of these cytokines.
As a result of the unique microbiome of e-cigarette users and clinical markers for gum disease, researchers concluded that vaping presents its own set of challenges to oral health.
Scott Thomas, an assistant research scientist in Saxena’s lab and the study’s co-first author, said, “E-cigarette use is a relatively new human habit,” There is a lack of knowledge about the health consequences of e-cigarette use, compared to smoking, which has been studied extensively for decades. We are only now beginning to understand how the unique microbiome promoted by vaping impacts oral health and disease.”