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TOPLINE:

Poor oral health was associated with increased migraines and abdominal and body pain in women with central sensitization disorders, with risk for specific pain conditions linked to specific types of oral pathogens, a new study showed.

METHODOLOGY:

• This was a secondary analysis of data from a prospective observational study conducted in Auckland, New Zealand (2021-2022). It included 158 non-smoking women without diabetes or chronic inflammatory disorders.
• Data on the oral microbiome were obtained through the metatranscriptomic analysis of saliva samples collected from the participants.
• Measures included the World Health Organization Oral Health Questionnaire for adults, the Short Form 36 bodily pain domain, International Headache Society criteria applied to data from the Headache Symptom Questionnaire, and the Functional Bowel Disorder Severity Index.
• The analysis was adjusted for age, body mass index, and intake of added dietary sugar.

TAKEAWAY:

• After adjusting for confounding factors, the abundance of four oral pathogenic species (Parvimonas micra, Solobacterium moorei, Dialister pneumosintes, and Fusobacterium nucleatum) were significantly associated with increased body pain (P < .001 for all) and poor oral health.
• Women with migraine had lower total oral health scores compared with those without migraine (P < .001). Those in the lowest oral health quintiles had a significantly higher likelihood of experiencing migraine headaches (P < .001) and had elevated body pain scores.
• Oral health scores were significantly associated with increased functional bowel disorder pain severity (P < .001).
• An abundance of Gardnerella vaginalis was linked to poor oral health scores, whereas abundance of Lancefieldella (genus) and Mycoplasma salivarium were linked to migraine.

IN PRACTICE:

“This is the first study to investigate oral health, oral microbiota, and pain commonly experienced in women with fibromyalgia, with our study showing a clear and significant association between poor oral health and pain,” study co-investigator Joanna E. Harnett, PhD, Sydney Pharmacy School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia, said in a press release.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Sharon Erdrich, Sydney Pharmacy School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. It was published online on April 09 in Frontiers in Pain Research.

LIMITATIONS: 

This observational study could not confirm causality, and results may have been affected by unmeasured factors, such as pain affecting the microbiome. Data obtained using RNA metatranscriptomics were not directly comparable to those obtained using 16S methods. Oral health was self-reported without clinical confirmation, limiting the knowledge of potential periodontal disease. Additionally, saliva samples may not have fully represented site-specific oral microbiota.

DISCLOSURES:

This study received no financial support. Some of the investigators reported having employment ties with Viome Life Sciences and being on the editorial board of the journal in which the work was published.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.