Probiotic Biotherapy: Discussing its Influential Role in Oral Health
Abstract
Introduction: Probiotics are widely known for its health promoting benefits, especially with its association to gastrointestinal health. For many years, most of its research has been focused on the prevention or treatment of gastrointestinal infections or diseases. However, recently probiotics has been a subject of investigation with its association to oral health. This review of literature is designed to analyze the effectiveness of using probiotics as a preventative and therapeutic method for oral infections/diseases such as periodontitis, dental caries, and the like.
Methods/materials: Databases such as the PubMed, and Google Scholar were utilized to find current and relevant findings for this reviewed literature. Mendeley was utilized to gather and store findings. The following keyword search items include probiotics, oral health, periodontal diseases, periodontitis, dental caries, gingivitis, halitosis, microorganisms, and biotherapy. Articles were narrowed down to include studies published within the last 5 years.
Results: Short-term clinical studies suggest that the daily ingestion of probiotics, lactobacilli bacteria, show a strong inhibitory effect on the growth and biofilm formation of cariogenic strains of bacteria such as Streptococcus mutans. Their repeated success in inhibiting harmful oral bacteria suggests that the use of probiotics holds a promising future in dentistry.
Conclusion: Although still in its initial stages, the use of probiotics is being established as a living biotherapeutic designed to restore normal oral microflora in the oral cavity. More long-term clinical trials are needed to fully understand their functioning and substantiate their role in oral health.