Tongue bacteria can provide an important indication of the condition of patients with heart failure, according to a new study.
Previous work has found that microorganisms in the tongue coating were different in people with pancreatic cancer and healthy people.
So Dr Tianhui Yuan and colleagues at the Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, China, explored whether it could also indicate the inflammation that plays a role in heart failure.
They tested the composition of the tongue microbiome in 42 participants with chronic heart failure and 28 people without. All were free of oral, tongue or dental diseases and other circumstances which could affect the tongue microbiome.
Details were announced on HFA Discoveries, a platform for presenting research, hosted by the European Society of Cardiology.
The team took samples of the tongue coating first thing in the morning, and carried out 16S rRNA gene sequencing to identify bacteria. This showed that heart failure patients shared the same types of microorganisms, with no overlap between that group and the healthy participants.
Dr Yuan explains: "The tongues of patients with chronic heart failure look totally different to those of healthy people. Normal tongues are pale red with a pale white coating. Heart failure patients have a redder tongue with a yellow coating and the appearance changes as the disease becomes more advanced.
"Our study found that the composition, quantity and dominant bacteria of the tongue coating differ between heart failure patients and healthy people."
She added: "More research is needed, but our results suggest that tongue microbes, which are easy to obtain, could assist with wide-scale screening, diagnosis, and long-term monitoring of heart failure. The underlying mechanisms connecting microorganisms in the tongue coating with heart function deserve further study."
Abstract: Tongue coating microbiome data distinguish patients with chronic heart failure from healthy.
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