Bacteria in your mouth might reveal how depressed you are, scientists say
Depression could be linked to a lack of diversity in the bacteria in your mouth, according to new research.
As you read this, your mouth contains between 500 billion and 1 trillion bacteria. After the gut microbiome, the orifice is the second-largest community of microorganisms in human bodies.
Now, researchers at New York University say the makeup of those microbes could be used to help diagnose and treat depression. In a new study, they found that less diversity of microbes in the mouth is associated with the mental health condition.
'It's possible that the oral microbiome influences depressive symptoms through inflammation or changes to the immune system. Conversely, depression can drive changes including dietary intake, poor oral hygiene, increased smoking and drinking, or the use of medications—all of which have the potential to alter the oral microbiome,' Dr. Bei Wu, vice dean for research at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing, said in a statement. 'We need more research to understand the direction and underlying pathways of this relationship.'
Wu is the senior author of the study, which was published this week in the journal BMC Oral Health.
To reach these conclusions, the authors examined data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They used questionnaire data from more than 15,000 adults collected between 2009 and 2012 to compare symptoms of depression with saliva samples.
They also used gene sequencing to identify the microbes in the saliva and measure the diversity of the oral microbiome. That's how they found that people with less microbial diversity were more likely to have symptoms of depression.
Additional analysis revealed that practices including smoking, drinking, and dental care influenced the relationship between the oral microbiome and depression. They can all change the makeup of bacteria in the mouth.
They noted that antidepressants and other psychotropic medications have side effects that can lead to reduced saliva and alter the oral microenvironment.
'Thus, medications not only alleviate depressive symptoms but also have a regulatory effect on oral health,' they said.
Still, it remains unclear whether the diversity of microbes in the mouth influences depression, if depression leads to changes in the oral microbiome, or if there's a symbiotic relationship.
They noted that a recent study found a potential link between depression and the diversity of bacteria in the gut, and that a growing body of research points to a connection between the oral microbiome and overall health. That's thought to be driven by inflammation and disruptions to the immune system.
They hope these findings will support a greater understanding of the issue. In 2021, an estimated 21 million adults had at least one major depressive episode in the past year.
'Having a better understanding of the relationship between the oral microbiome and depression could not only help us learn about the mechanisms underlying depression, but could contribute to the development of new biomarkers or treatments for mood disorders,' said Wu.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Epoch Times
a day ago
- Epoch Times
Relieve Sciatica Pain With 1 Simple TCM Stretch
Deep within your body lies the sciatic nerve, a remarkable superhighway that stretches from your lower back, winds through your hips, and extends down to the soles of your feet. As one of the longest nerves in the human body, it's a powerhouse of sensation and movement. However, when this nerve becomes pinched or irritated, it unleashes sciatica—a fiery, radiating pain that can turn even the most mundane steps into a grueling challenge. Enter Hung-chien Wu, the director of Taiwan's Yi-Sheng Chinese Medicine Clinic, who once battled the relentless grip of sciatica himself. Through a single stretching exercise, he managed to tame his pain and reclaim his life. Now, armed with the wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Wu has guided tens of thousands of patients to freedom from sciatica, helping them rediscover the joy of pain-free living with his proven, holistic approach. Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Are Effective Modern Western medical treatments for sciatica, such as spinal traction, can temporarily relieve nerve compression. However, without ongoing treatment and proper spinal posture, the spine may compress the nerve again under the influence of gravity.
Gizmodo
a day ago
- Gizmodo
Neanderthals Spread Across Asia With Surprising Speed—and Now We Know How
Neanderthals and modern humans split from a common ancestor around 500,000 years ago, with Neanderthals leaving Africa for Europe and Asia long before modern humans joined them hundreds of thousands of years later. There, Neanderthals dispersed as far as Spain and Siberia. Our prehistoric cousins likely first reached Asia around 190,000 to 130,000 years ago, with another substantial migration to Central and Eastern Eurasia likely between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. But how did they get there? Since there isn't enough archaeological evidence to reconstruct their migration paths, a team of anthropologists has turned to computer models. Their simulations mapped out possible routes Neanderthals could have followed to reach Asia, and suggest that by traveling during warmer periods and following river valleys, they could have traversed approximately 2,000 miles (3,250 kilometers) in less than 2,000 years. 'Our findings show that, despite obstacles like mountains and large rivers, Neanderthals could have crossed northern Eurasia surprisingly quickly,' Emily Coco, co-author of a study published yesterday in the journal PLOS One, said in a New York University statement. 'These findings provide important insights into the paths of ancient migrations that cannot currently be studied from the archaeological record and reveal how computer simulations can help uncover new clues about ancient migrations that shaped human history.' Coco began the study as a doctoral student at New York University and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Algarve. She and her colleague's models accounted for temperature, land elevation, ancient rivers, and glaciers. While scholars had previously used a similar approach to simulate human and animal movement, the anthropologists are the first to apply it to Neanderthals, according to the statement. In doing so, they found potential migration paths during two time periods characterized by a warmer climate: around 125,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago. The different paths, which made use of river valleys, would have taken Neanderthals to Eurasia's Siberian Altai Mountains along roughly the same northern route through the Ural Mountains and southern Siberia within 2,000 years. Significantly, the paths align with known Neanderthal archaeological sites as well as areas occupied by Denisovans, with whom scientists know Neanderthals interbred. 'Neanderthals could have migrated thousands of kilometers from the Caucasus Mountains to Siberia in just 2,000 years by following river corridors,' Radu Iovita, the other co-author of the study and an associate professor at NYU's Center for the Study of Human Origins, said in the statement. 'Others have speculated on the possibility of this kind of fast, long-distance migration based on genetic data, but this has been difficult to substantiate due to limited archaeological evidence in the region. Based on detailed computer simulations, it appears this migration was a near-inevitable outcome of landscape conditions during past warm climatic periods.' Coco and Iovita specify, however, that their model does not consider every possible element that could have influenced Neanderthal movement, such as resources, climate change, short-term weather patterns, vegetation preferences, and previous occupations, among others. Still, in the absence of archaeological records, computer simulations provide a viable method of tracing the footsteps of prehistoric people—even though it's not nearly as creative as searching for pitstops in Viking migration routes by sailing a Nordic clinker boat along the frigid Norwegian coast.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Our film imagined a post-Roe nightmare. Then it came true
When I first met Amy in the emergency room, she had a minor laceration on her finger. She claimed it was from an accident in the kitchen, but her cowering posture, downcast eyes and hesitant responses to basic questions suggested there was more to her visit than she was letting on. Amy reminds me of the girls I grew up with. Delicate, but exhausted and under pressure. She works long hours at a convenience store with a manager who offers no flexibility. Determined to save enough for college classes toward her degree, Amy has also shouldered the responsibility of supporting her mother, who has grown dependent on painkillers. She cleans homes to cover unexpected expenses, like becoming pregnant after a condom broke during sex, but she was unable to scrape together enough cash to purchase the morning-after pill. On June 3, the Trump administration revoked guidance that required hospitals to provide emergency abortions for patients in need. This national directive was issued in 2022 by the Biden administration, using the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and it was intended to assist women facing medical emergencies and other serious complications. The Trump administration's action is just the latest salvo in an ongoing battle, one in which reproductive freedom seems to be losing ground every day. The mood, among both doctors and patients, is one of persistent uncertainty and fear. Here in the emergency room, Amy and I both feel it. The cut on Amy's finger was a ruse — a desperate act to access care. She is pregnant and doesn't want to be. But in our state, abortion is illegal. As an emergency physician, I tell her – quietly – that if she travels to another state, she can receive proper care. She'll need to budget a certain amount of cash for travel expenses. We keep this conversation between us. The possibility of this scene has become all too familiar a worry in real life, but the truth is that Amy isn't real. And I'm not really an emergency physician, I just play one in a movie. A few months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, while we were both still attending journalism school at New York University, my friend Nate Hilgartner approached me about a film he wanted to write and direct about the ethical implications of a post-Roe world. He had me in mind to play a doctor in a rural town torn between her duty to help her patient and the imperative to obey restrictive new laws. It would be an American horror story, he told me. At the time, it seemed prophetic but impossible, a bit of artful exaggeration to warn against a dystopian tendency. Today, it's our reality, and in some ways, things are worse. The consequences of a woman not receiving the reproductive healthcare of her choice could lead someone like our fictional protagonist to lose her ability to create a life on her own terms, trapping her in a cycle of poverty with a lack of education. In Georgia, a pregnant woman who has been declared brain-dead is being kept on life support until her baby can be delivered. Across the country, women have been turned away from emergency rooms after suffering ectopic pregnancies, which require an emergency abortion to prevent potentially fatal outcomes. Doctors have been reprimanded and fined, including Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN from Indiana, who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim denied an abortion in Ohio. Three years ago, all of this would have sounded like fiction, a fever-dream storyline out of The Handmaid's Tale. An investigation by ProPublica in December 2024 revealed that doctors in states with abortion bans often feel abandoned by lawyers and hospital leaders when seeking guidance on how to proceed with patients in emergencies. Since information about managing the bans in each state have been provided only on a 'need-to-know' basis, many doctors are left to navigate alternative options on their own, with some becoming too afraid to offer care, fearing professional and personal consequences. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.) described the situation as doctors 'playing lawyer' and lawyers 'playing doctor,' leaving pregnant women facing life-or-death situations caught in the middle. Experts warn that the decision to eliminate access to emergency life-saving abortions will further exacerbate the crisis for doctors. The Trump administration's order to revoke emergency abortions sends a clear message to women who lack adequate resources to afford proper care. EMTALA, enacted in 1986, was designed to protect patients and ensure they receive stabilizing emergency care, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. While all pregnant women benefited from this law, it now appears that only those with sufficient health care and life circumstances will be able to survive potential emergencies. I am a writer and an actor, not a doctor. But for a time I imagined what it was like to be seated across from a woman scared and uncertain about the choices she could make about her body. Amy may not be real, but her plight is. Many of us may not admit it, but we've had our scares, moments where we've had to seriously consider the possibility of what we'd do if confronted with a pregnancy we weren't ready to have. At an age where I contemplate my own reproductive future, I am given pause: How can anyone assume there will never be complications in their pregnancy? Stories like Amy's aren't just about the right to make decisions about our bodies; they're also about the painful truth that those choices often come with a cost. When we set out to make this film, No Choice, we hoped to imagine a plausible future — not to prophesy our present reality. We could never have predicted just how quickly real-world headlines would not only validate our story, but outpace its darkest possibilities. Making a film was just one of many actions we hope other people will take to challenge the belief that a woman's body belongs to the state, not to herself. No Choice premieres in Los Angeles at the Dances With Films festival on June 23 — just one day shy of the third anniversary marking the fall of Roe v. Wade.
