We often think of the health of our mouth as something completely isolated that has no more significance than the odious cavities that we get. forced to go to the dentist or the bad breath. However, science has been warning for years that the mouth is the gateway to much more complex systems, such as the possibility that a bacteria from our gums travel to the breast tissue and may accelerate tumor growth.
An unwanted traveler. The protagonist of this new discovery is the bacteria Fusobacterium nucleatum, an old acquaintance of dentists. We are talking about an opportunistic bacteria that thrives in dental plaque and is one of the main culprits of periodontitis, which is undoubtedly one of the most recognized gum diseases.
What the team led by Dipalo Sharma has recently demonstrated is that this bacteria does not stay still on the gumsbut it has the ability to travel through the body to the breast tissue or even also is already linked to colon cancer.
Its effect. The study In this case, he used mice to simulate two different scenarios in order to see how this very common bacteria behaved. The first of them was to inject the bacteria into the breasts of healthy mice, where precancerous inflammatory lesions began to be seen.
In the case of injecting into existing tumors is where the alarms go off, since in these mice the presence of the bacteria tripled the size of the cancer and caused lung metastases in 100% of the cases observed.
How he does it. It’s the million-dollar question: how does a bacteria from the mouth know that it has to go to the chest and how does it manage to do so much damage? Science has found an explanation at a molecular level that begins with inflammation of the gums in periodontal disease, since this causes the bacteria to enter the bloodstream.
Once in the stream, the bacteria begins to travel and takes advantage of a very specific protein, called Fap2, which acts like a key that searches for a specific lock: a sugar called Gal-GalNAc, which turns out to be very abundant on the surface of breast cancer cells.
Creating a shield. Once the bacteria adheres to the tissue thanks to this specificity, it begins to colonize, but it also has the ability to suppress the cells in charge of our defense. And specifically those that defend us from cancer cells that bypass the body’s checkpoints.
Furthermore, it induces direct DNA damage and preferentially colonizes cells that have mutations in the BRCA1 gene, exacerbating the risk in genetically predisposed people.
Dental hygiene. The result of this research leads us to a very clear question: does not brushing your teeth cause cancer? Logically not. In the field of health, causality is not as simple as ‘do this and that happens’, but rather it works as an accumulation of risks that increase the chances of generating a problem such as cancer.
A risk factor. In this case, science suggests that having periodontitis, due to poor hygiene sustained over time, is associated with an increase of around 22% in the risk of suffering from breast cancer.
And it is not the first time that dental disease is a risk factor of this type. A well documented case is in the relationship between deep dental caries and bacterial endocarditisan infection of the inner lining of the heart. That is why the recommendation here is always to maintain good oral hygiene and always treat cavities as soon as possible when they appear.
Images | Caroline L.M.
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