Probiotics in Oral Health: a Review

The term probiotics is a relatievly new word meaning “for life” and is currently used to name bacteria associated with beneficial effects for humans and animals. The development of resistance to range of antibiotics by some important pathogen has raised a possibility of return to pre antibiotic dark ages. So there was need of new treatment paradigm to be introduced to treat periodontal diseases. This need was fulfilled by the introduction of probiotics. Probiotics are counterparts of antibiotics thus are free from concerns for developing resistance, further they are body’s own resident flora hence are most easily adapted to host. The buzz about probiotics has become a roar but despite great promises, probiotics work is limited to gut. Periodontal works are sparse and need validation by large randomized trials. It can be said probiotics are still in “infancy” in terms of periodontal health benefits, but surely have opened door for a new paradigm of treating disease on a nano molecular mode. Novel species are likely to be added in the future as research data accumulate. In-depth understanding of the intrinsic microbial ecological control of commensal microbiota may introduce new putative species to this discussion.