Oral microbial shift: Factors affecting the microbiome and prevention of oral disease

Background: Recently, oral microbiome has gained popularity among scientists. Microorganisms are no longer considered as disease-producing pathogens, rather they are now considered as partners of human in maintaining health. Since ancient times, changes in our lifestyle have affected our microbiome and the balance with their human host has been perturbed. The present review includes the description about factors affecting oral microbiome and establishing symbiosis with the human host so that they contribute in maintaining health rather than eliciting diseases. Materials and methods: A comprehensive literature search was performed on databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed and Medline until April 2015. First, articles were selected on the basis of their titles and then abstracts were screened and unwanted articles were excluded. Articles obtained from all the databases were checked and duplicate articles were removed. Articles obtained from various databases: PubMed = 35, Google Scholar = 8. Out of these 43 articles, total 29 articles were finally selected for this review. Results: The published literature suggests that the modern oral microbiome is less biodiverse, and possess more pathogenic bacterial species and lesser beneficial bacteria. The possible factors mainly responsible for this shift in microbiome were found to be change in diet, industrial revolution and indiscriminate use of antibiotics. Conclusion: Various changes in lifestyles have affected oral microbiome adversely and perturb the symbiosis between the microbiome and their hosts. The present oral microbiome is found to be less diverse and more pathogenic. The present review may be helpful in understanding the relationship between the microbiome and their human hosts so that microbiome contributes in maintaining healthy state of the body.