Oral probiotics for dentistry

Introduction The potential application of probiotics for oral health has recently attracted the attention of several teams of researchers. Although clinical studies have been conducted, the results to date could not safely suggest that probiotics could be useful in preventing and treating oral infections, including dental caries, periodontal disease and halitosis. This study aimed to review the body of knowledge relating to oral probiotics and to consider their effectiveness and selecting strains. Conclusion Different probiotic strains, if manage to be active in the mouth, would be expected to have different mechanisms of action in the oral cavity as they have different modes of action, and some of the observed effects of the probiotic bacteria were indeed strain specific. On the other hand, all of positive effects of the probiotic bacteria observed in studies were not specific for the probiotic strains but properties common to several species are even genera. In addition, previously reported probiotic properties beneficial to gut function do not necessarily correlate with probiotic activity in the oral cavity. We suggest it is also important to select newly isolated oral probiotic bacteria since the health benefits are varied among the strains.