A new study from Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine has found a surprising way to help detect chronic heart failure—by looking at the bacteria on a person’s tongue.
Researchers discovered that people with heart failure have very different microbes on their tongues compared to healthy people.
In general, a healthy person’s tongue looks pale red with a thin white coating. But people with chronic heart failure tend to have redder tongues with a yellowish coating. As their heart condition gets worse, these changes become more noticeable.
The researchers believe that checking the tongue’s bacteria could help doctors diagnose heart failure, track its progress, and even screen people early for the disease. This method is simple, doesn’t hurt, and could be used on a large scale.
The study looked at 42 people with chronic heart failure and compared them to 28 healthy individuals. None of the participants had oral health problems, infections, or had taken antibiotics or immune-related medicines in the week before the test.
To collect samples, researchers used a stainless steel spoon to gently scrape the tongue coating early in the morning before the participants ate or brushed their teeth. Then they used a lab technique called 16S rRNA gene sequencing to figure out which bacteria were present.
The results were clear. The group with heart failure had a totally different set of bacteria on their tongues than the healthy group. In fact, the two groups had no overlapping bacteria at all.
The scientists found five types of bacteria that were especially good at telling heart failure patients apart from healthy people. This test was able to predict heart failure with an accuracy of 84%. They also found that two types of bacteria—Eubacterium and Solobacterium—became less common as heart failure got worse.
This means that tongue microbes could become a useful tool for spotting heart failure and watching how it changes over time. Because the test is easy and doesn’t require any special equipment beyond basic tools and lab tests, it could be used widely in hospitals or even in community health checks.
This is not the first time scientists have studied tongue bacteria in connection with diseases. In earlier research, changes in tongue microbes were linked to pancreatic cancer. Experts believe that an imbalance in the microbes might cause inflammation, which can contribute to disease. This might also be true for heart failure.
While this study gives us an exciting new way to think about heart health, more research is needed. Scientists still don’t know if these changes in tongue bacteria cause heart failure or simply happen because of it.
Even so, this new approach shows a lot of promise. If future studies support these findings, we might be able to detect heart problems early—just by examining a person’s tongue.
The study was led by Dr. Tianhui Yuan and reminds us that sometimes the clues to serious health problems can be found in unexpected places.
If you care about heart disease, please read studies that herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm, and how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk.
For more health information, please see recent studies that apple juice could benefit your heart health, and results showing yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease.
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