This story has been around for far too long and evidence is unbelievably weak, and the claims border on fraudulent.
1. The claim that this strain outcompetes the same S mutans from occupying the same niche cannot be true unless this strain is also capable of creating and tolerating environments with low pH. By definition if it creates acid to the same degree it will also cause cavities.
2. Single applications are insufficient to cause any persistent colonization. Even multiple daily applications of oral probiotics don’t lead to colonization. Oral probiotics function primarily through bacteriocins, not through colonization (except in very rare cases). This is because the existing microbiome is incredibly difficult to outcompete. The community in your mouth has evolved for as long as you have lived, and in some ways was shaped for generations before as it’s technically inherited from your ancestors.
3. S mutans is not the only species that causes cavities. S sobrinus, S wiggsiae, B dentium, about a dozen other acidogenic species also cause cavities.
Source: I’m a cofounder at Bristle Health, the oral microbiome company.
1. The claim that this strain outcompetes the same S mutans from occupying the same niche cannot be true unless this strain is also capable of creating and tolerating environments with low pH. By definition if it creates acid to the same degree it will also cause cavities.
2. Single applications are insufficient to cause any persistent colonization. Even multiple daily applications of oral probiotics don’t lead to colonization. Oral probiotics function primarily through bacteriocins, not through colonization (except in very rare cases). This is because the existing microbiome is incredibly difficult to outcompete. The community in your mouth has evolved for as long as you have lived, and in some ways was shaped for generations before as it’s technically inherited from your ancestors.
3. S mutans is not the only species that causes cavities. S sobrinus, S wiggsiae, B dentium, about a dozen other acidogenic species also cause cavities.
Source: I’m a cofounder at Bristle Health, the oral microbiome company.