Why humans need to brush their teeth

[jim mcnamara]

• 
  http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com...troenterology/antibiotic-associated-diarrhea/

(Note: I cannot get rid of the stupid bullets above - sorry).

Next, you get diarrhea. It clears up after a day or two. Then an even nastier diarrhea occurs, which in older patients can be fatal. And may take prolonged medical treatment to overcome.

Why?
[ Below is the reason for this post - an example outside of tooth brushing about population dynamics in gut microbiota - which is what this thread has become ]
Clostridium was controlled by the original population of gut microbiota. Diarrhea removed most of them. Clostridium then moved into the newly vacated places it likes and goes non-linear. And. It resists some forms of treatment, plus, for extra fun, some varieties of Clostridium have antibiotic resistance.

What treatments work the best in most cases?. Yogurt - the kind with live cultures is often very preventive, and curative as well.

You can also cause diarrhea from prolonged oral antibiotics. You see why. You screw up the community of beasties in your gut because there are other Clostridium wannabes down there that are not susceptible to the antibiotic.

http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com...troenterology/antibiotic-associated-diarrhea/

The general term for this phenomenon is called r and K selection. Or why do weeds grow in a newly plowed field but not in a forest? Some species are great colonizers. Others are better long term competitors. They take over from the weeds.

 

[symbolipoint]

• @Drakkith
  
• Okay. There is a bacterium, Clostridium difficile by name. It exists in tiny numbers in many peoples' gut, its occurrence is a function of age. The older you are the more likely you are to have a few of these guys. So we donate some of these beasties to your gut free of charge. Just for our example.

(Note: I cannot get rid of the stupid bullets above - sorry).

Next, you get diarrhea. It clears up after a day or two. Then an even nastier diarrhea occurs, which in older patients can be fatal. And may take prolonged medical treatment to overcome.

Why?

Clostridium was controlled by the original population of gut microbiota. Diarrhea removed most of them. Clostridium then moved into the newly vacated places it likes and goes non-linear. And. It resists some forms of treatment, plus, for extra fun, some varieties of Clostridium have antibiotic resistance.

What treatments work the best in most cases?. Yogurt - the kind with live cultures is often very preventive, and curative as well.

You can also cause diarrhea from prolonged oral antibiotics. You see why. You screw up the community of beasties in your gut because there are other Clostridium wannabes down there that are not susceptible to the antibiotic.

http://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com...troenterology/antibiotic-associated-diarrhea/

Nice to be informed about all that, but remember, the topic was started as 'why need to brush our teeth'.

You can click to EDIT your post, highlight the unwanted bulleted section, click to remove the bulleting using the toolbar, and then click in some other location in your post, and then click to SAVE; and the bulleting should be gone.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@symbolipoint - thanks. I already carped about going off topic, I gave up. It is not bad enough to warrant any action. Yet.
And tried the bullet cure - did not work.

 

[Drakkith]

These should avoid or answer your dispute. I am not an expert, but it seems that the bacteria needed for sugars conversion into acids are simple, common and specific (like in fermenting), probably found easily on any mouth or they develop further if mouth hygiene is not met. The main and original cause though is the food debris that get stuck in the teeth (if high in sugars), that's why we should brush our teeth! Simple as that!

I agree with most of that. As far as I'm aware, the bacteria that ferment sugar consist of various species of anaerobic bacteria that are always present and a larger variety of bacteria does little to change this. Hence my question about how a larger variety of bacteria in your mouth affects tooth decay (oral hygiene). Speaking of oral hygiene, I just remembered I have a dental appointment later on today... I better get to bed.

 

[Stavros Kiri]

[ Below is the reason for this post - an example outside of tooth brushing about population dynamics in gut microbiota - which is what this thread has become ]

What makes you say that? I thought we got back on track. But there is relevance and/or connection between domains, sometimes. [Not as much here, about tooth decay, teeth brushing etc., and gut microbiota, as it turned out.]
But in any case, I think your post was interesting and useful.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

What treatments work the best in most cases?. Yogurt - the kind with live cultures is often very preventive, and curative as well.

I'm always skeptical about claims regarding probiotics—while it is certainly a hot topic for research, there is also a lot of bad science promulgated by the unregulated dietary supplement industry. From the NIH:

There’s preliminary evidence that some probiotics are helpful in preventing diarrhea caused by infections and antibiotics and in improving symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, but more needs to be learned. We still don’t know which probiotics are helpful and which are not. We also don’t know how much of the probiotic people would have to take or who would most likely benefit from taking probiotics. Even for the conditions that have been studied the most, researchers are still working toward finding the answers to these questions.

https://nccih.nih.gov/health/probiotics/introduction.htm

That's a very far cry from the claim that yogurt is the best treatment for preventing and curing diarrhea.

 

[jim mcnamara]

@Ygggdrasil - you are 100% correct - if it seems that implied that to be true, then I am sorry. I was trying to convey that restoring gut flora may be important to getting completely over diarrheic episodes. This is from two GI docs I play tennis with. They often treat patients with chronic diarrhea and part of their post treatment regimen is to suggest yogurt-like things for the diet. This is clinical procedure, which is as we both know not the same thing as hard science. They base this on the well-known fact that long antibiotic regimes often result in colonic problems in patients.

Nutritionists take: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/73/6/1124S.full - note that it is not a definite statement.

You are aware of one function (of several) of the appendix: restoration of gut flora after severe diarrhea.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23322636 - gut microbial reservoir.

And your well-taken comment on all of the hoo-ha and huckstering around the subject does tend to lend less credence to it.

 

[BillTre]

Probiotics has been used in aquaculture for a while and has more than one definition and presumed functional mechanism.
1) fighting: probiotic organisms produce toxins or in some other way directly antagonize "bad" bacteria.
2) niche exclusion: if the "good" bacteria are already living in the house (occupying all the sites in a particular micro-environment) than it is much more difficult for the new, incoming "bad" bacteria to move in a establish themselves there.
3) r vs. K selection: (r is an exponent: fast exponential growth, K is a constant: linear growth) fast growing opportunistic vs. slower growing bacteria highly evolved to extract its living from a smaller, more refined part of the environment. The r type bacteria can move in fast and take advantage of a disrupted environment (say after antibiotics, with reduced competition from the depleted K bacteria) and make a relatively easy living off of the easy to extract resources. This works until things get more crowded and the greater extraction efficiency of the K selected bacteria can change the balance back toward a more diverse population.