Popular Japanese tea protects your gums and teeth: Scientists

Your favorite green latte can help keep your mouth healthy, researchers have found.

Matcha—a finely ground Japanese green tea often mixed with milk or used in sweets—may keep periodontitis, the serious gum disease, at bay, according to new paper in the journal Microbiology Spectrum.

The main cause of periodontitis is bacteria Porphyromonas gingivaliswhich the researchers found to be inhibited by matcha.

“Matcha may have clinical application for the prevention and treatment of periodontitis,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

They found that the development of P. gingivalis inhibited by the presence of matcha in laboratory experiments. They tested the matcha solution against 16 species of oral bacteria and found that after two hours of exposure, nearly all P. gingivalis cells were killed and all were dead after four hours.

The scientists then went on to test the effects of matcha mouthwash on 45 people with periodontitis, finding that those who used the mouthwash had significantly lower P. gingivalis in their saliva compared to those who did not.

Periodontitis is a serious gum infection that destroys soft tissue and, if left untreated, can lead to tooth loss or even destroy the bone that supports your teeth. Plaque forms on the teeth due to bacteria in the mouth feeding on sugars in food, which can then harden under your gums and become tartar if not removed. P. gingivalis is one of the main bacterial species involved in this process.

“The natural habitat for Porphyromonas gingivalis is below the gum line in humans. It is usually detected at very low levels, if at all, during health, but under certain conditions it can become destructive and transform a healthy subgingival microbiota in a pathogenic community. leads to chronic infection and inflammation and, if left untreated, tooth loss,” said Mary Ellen Davey, senior researcher at the ADA Forsyth Institute. Newsweek.

The longer plaque and tartar remain on your teeth, the more they irritate the gingiva, the part of your gums around the base of your teeth. This irritation can cause inflammation of the gums, which can eventually lead to periodontitis, eventually causing pockets to develop between the gums and teeth that fill with plaque, tartar and bacteria.

“The dangers of periodontitis have been the focus of much attention in dental and medical research because this multifactorial inflammatory disease of the oral cavity is not only a leading cause of tooth loss, but is also associated with a wide range of other chronic inflammations. -induced disorders, such as diabetes mellitus, premature birth, cardiovascular disease, aspiration pneumonia, rheumatoid arthritis, cognitive impairment and cancer,” said study author Ryoma Nakao, a researcher at Japan’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases ( NIID). Newsweek.

Matcha tea is made using the leaves of Camellia sinensis, a green tea plant that has long been associated with antimicrobial effects. Previous research has found that green tea in general can inhibit the growth of other dangerous bacteria such as E. coli and that P. gingivalis is less able to attach to cells inside the mouth after exposure to green tea extract.

“The study showed that matcha extract inhibited growth by morphological and physiological changes in the bacterial envelope. Matcha extract induced the formation of nanoparticles and reduced membrane fluidity/permeability without loss of membrane integrity. Thus, the killing activity is likely due to multimodal inhibitory effect of macha against P. ginigivalis,” added Nakao.

“Matcha extract inhibited the growth of not only P. gingivalis, but also other periodontal pathogens such as Prevotella and Fusobacterium. However, it did not inhibit the growth of nine species of oral streptococci. Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans in relation to individual periodontitis also resistant to matcha extract. “

The researchers hope this could help spark new uses for matcha to treat periodontal disease.

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Correction 05/23/24, 06:51 am ET: This article has been updated to reflect that matcha is popular in Japan, not China.