Every once in a while, I realize that the path I chose for my life has been pretty fortuitous.  Sure, I had two failed marriages (one clearly my fault; the other clearly not)- but I was awarded three fantabulous children as a result, so- on balance- I still consider them fortuitous.

But, what led me to revel in the fortuity of my life today is my educational choices.  I had decided to become a chemical engineer more than 60 years ago (yes, I was 8).  And, despite that career choice, I knew that I would never find myself employed in the petrochemical industries- which was unheard of until some 30 years ago. (I admit to providing water reuse process design for that sector- but it was water treatment, not petrochemical process development.)  I moved along to bio-chemical engineering (which is what I really wanted, but that segment did not exist until grad school).

I have been working with microbes- to treat water, for medical applications, even as they are involved in the digestive system for almost 5 decades.  Which brings up some new theories (they have not quite been proven to be facts) regarding our bodies and diseases.

We all have heard the admonitions that it’s our terrible habits- how we eat, what we eat, what we drink, how we (don’t) exercise- that leads to our early demise.  (For this current discussion, let’s skip opiod and narcotic abuse, since we all clearly know that is why the American life span has dramatically lowered over the past decade.)

Cardiac disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, renal disease, macular degeneration and more than a few cancers all are related to inflammation- the ability (or inability) of our body’s immune system to protect us from invaders.  (No, not the invasion that TheDonald routinely proclaims.  That one’s fake.  This one is real- each and every day.)

For years, we were positive we knew (yes, even though it was just an hypothesis, but you know what I mean) that Alzheimer’s was caused by plaque deposits (tau and amyloid).  Yet, every drug we developed to deal with these deposits have had no effect upon Alzheimer’s.  We  also know (except Dr. Bob Krauss has the real answer as to why this is false) that high cholesterol leads to heart attacks- yet, the folks who succumb to heart attacks usually don’t have high cholesterol levels.

But, now that we have been developing more elaborate techniques to culture some very finicky species , we are recognizing that many of these diseases are related to bacterial invasions. Except many of these bugs (that’s the vernacular used for bacteria among us professionals) were able to elude detection because they hide (inside cells), grow v-e-r-y   s-l-o-w-l-y, or stay dormant for ridiculously long periods.

From the point of view of disease, one of the worst locations for these microbes in our body turns out to be the one that one of my fellow MIT grad students chose for her thesis.   (She was one of the 6 female Chem E grad students at the time.  And, many thought she was lost in space because of her hypothesis.)  Oral cavity microbial flora.  And, gum disease- prevailing in more than 60% of us senior citizens (42% for those over 30)- lets the microbes loose in our blood stream to create the havoc we call diseases.   Many of our ageing symptoms, rheumatoid arthritis, and Parkinson’s- among others- are more severe and/or more likely to prevail when there is gum disease in the patient.  (Yes, this is circumstantial evidence.  Give us time- we plan to find correlations soon enough.)

Here’s another piece of circumstantial evidence.   Those states that provide Medicaid funds to treat gum disease have fewer folks with heart attacks, diabetes, strokes, and cancer.  (These states actually drop at least 30% – and some as much as 67%- less on per patient health care.)  This same reduction also prevails for private insurance patients who have dental care and use it!

Our bodies have millions of bugs- and thousands of species.  But, within our bodies, these microbes form continuous sheets of cells, with the outermost layers being shed routinely.  Except that’s not what happens in our mouths- no such communities exist and no such shedding is manifested. In our mouths, the bacteria survive on ‘hard’ surfaces- and they pierce through them and the protective outer sheet of our cells.  Once these microbes spread in our gums, immune cells rush in and destroy the microbes and our diseased (infected) cells.

But, that often leaves anoxic (low oxygen [or, perhaps, anerobic- no oxygen]) pockets.  This is when opportunistic microbes rush in and begin to multiply.  (When we are young, the pathogens try to avoid inflammation or even block the body’s attacks- but as we age (somewhere between 30 and 40 y of age), the total defense is no longer prevalent- and long-term inflammation is the norm.  No, I don’t know why- except we’ll see more tomorrow.)

There’s lots of other ways oral pathogens can invade our bodies. Brushing our teeth, eating (which causes some gum abrasion) and other routine activities scrape off the microbes, releasing them to our bloodstream- even if we’ve never developed gum disease.

OK.  I’ve scared you plenty.

We’ll finish this up on Monday.

 

 

(Now you know why I don’t like interrupting my queue!)