Sweet Cheeks: How Early Nutrition Affects Oral Microbiota Populations and Disease Incidence

Completed

Conditions studied: Health Behavior

In brief

Dietary and oral hygiene habits are known to affect oral microorganisms and disease incidence, but most research has focused on preschool aged (2-4 yr old) children. A recent experiment in our lab demonstrated a highly diverse oral microbiome in the saliva of infants without teeth (3-6 months old). These data suggest that soft tissues in the mouth serve as a reservoir for pathogens and must be considered in oral health management. The evolution of microorganisms that occurs between birth and tooth eruption has not been characterized and may have great implications as it pertains to oral disease later in life. The investigators are interested in determining how dietary changes during this time affect oral microbiota. Tongue and cheek swab samples will be collected from a small cohort of infants (n=20) at 4 time points. At the same time, a survey and 3 day feeding diary of the infant's diet will be collected. In addition, a pregnancy survey and food frequency questionnaire will be administered at the time of recruitment. Research staff will conduct a 10-minute interview at the first and last oral sample collection time. These pilot data will provide important diet-oral microbe relationships in edentulous infants, allowing us to propose and test specific hypotheses pertaining to diet, oral microbes, and disease in young children.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT01836952

Run by

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

People needed

15

Starts

2012-10-01

Expected to finish

2016-03-01

Last updated by the study team

2016-10-31

Who can join

Age: 0 and older, up to 1. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Women must deliver vaginally a full term baby (37 weeks or later). Women must have a healthy pregnancy without medical complications. Women must breastfeed their baby for a period of time after birth (greater than 1 week), followed by introduction of formula.

You may not qualify if…

• Women must not have smoked during their pregnancy,nor have any serious medical conditions during their pregnancy.
• Infants can not be born via cesarean section.
• In addition, the infant should not have any chronic medical conditions and not taking any regular medications.
• Exclusion Criteria:
• full term infant
• healthy infant
• initially breastfed by mother

Where it is running

• University of Illinois — Urbana, Illinois, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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