Association of cigarette smoking with oral bacterial microbiota and cardiometabolic health in Chinese adultsOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
Read MoreWhat was studied?
Researchers examined whether cigarette smoking status is linked to oral bacterial microbiota, and whether any smoking-associated microbial features relate to cardiometabolic risk factors, in Chinese adults.
How was it studied?
The study drew on 587 participants from the Central China Cohort, 111 smokers and 476 non-smokers. Oral microbiota was profiled by 16S rRNA gene sequencing of saliva samples, with statistical models adjusted for sociodemographics, alcohol and tea drinking, tooth brushing frequency, and body mass index.
What did they find?
Oral microbial alpha diversity and beta diversity both differed significantly between smokers and non-smokers. Nine bacterial genera, including Megasphaera, and 26 functional pathways, including two involved in inositol degradation, differed significantly between the groups. Several of these smoking-related microbial features partly mediated the associations between smoking and serum triglyceride and C-reactive protein levels.
Why it matters
The findings suggest cigarette smoking may shift oral microbial composition and function in ways that partly help explain its association with worse cardiometabolic health markers. This points to oral microbiota as a possible pathway linking smoking to cardiovascular and metabolic risk, though the cross-sectional design cannot establish causation.