Studies Of Oral Microbial Communities And Oral Health Status Among Army Personnel In Plateau Areas

Oral diseases seriously affect qualities of life and health, and the operationalefficiency in the army. Recently, most of the investigations on oral health of soldiers inChina have been focused on caries, periodontal diseases, oral health measures, but thetreatment needs, the correlation between rank and oral diseases, attitudes, educationallevel and self-evaluation of oral health have rarely been reported. There are somedifferences in the oral health status of people between under the special settings(such asplateau, submarines, desert) and under general circumstances. In foreign countries, thereis little report about the oral health status of military personnel in plateau in that theyhave limited plateau areas, while China are rich in plateau areas. However, few studiesabout oral microbial flora structure in military personnel in plateau in China have beenreported so far. Therefore, there is a need for this situation to be addressed.Objective: To explore the status of oral health, of prevention and treatment of dentaldiseases, and the differences of oral microbial communities of military personnel inplateau and in plain. Factors influencing the prevention and treatment of dental diseasesare also discussed here.Methods: All of the members of two fire brigades, one (36male) from a plateau inTibet and the other (26male) from a plain in Chengdu, were selected randomly, andwere correspondingly divided into the plateau group and the plain group. Data wereobtained from clinical dental examinations and questionnaires. Questionnaires includedsocio-demographic features, education level, understanding of oral health knowledge,self-evaluation about oral health, frequency of sugars intake, oral hygiene measures andoral habits, access to oral health knowledge, impact of the oral problems on life in thepast year, dental clinic behaviors and treatment needs, etc. The dental examinationcovered dental caries, mucosal health, bleeding on probing(BOP), dental calculus,wisdom tooth pericoronitis, etc. The results were analyzed with the Statistical Packagefor the Social Sciences21.0(SPSS21.0). Then,11soldiers from the plateau group and10soldiers from the plain group were selected at random. Saliva was collected. Structural differences of oral microbial flora in the saliva samples was detected bydenaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE).Results: The proportion of soldiers with caries, decayed-missing-filled teeth (DMFT),the proportion of soldiers with BOP, and the detection rate of dental calculus of soldiersin the plateau group was41.7%（15/36）,1.17,88.9%(32/36) and77.8%(28/36);30.8%(8/26),0.5,30.8%(8/26) and46.2%(12/26) of soldiers in the plain group. Differencesin the proportion of soldiers with BOP and in the detection rate of dental calculusbetween the two groups are statistically significant(P<0.05), while no significantdifferences in the proportion of soldiers with caries and in DMFT are detected (P>0.05).Differences in frequency of sweetened water intake and in the proportion of soldiersdrinking sweetened water between the two groups are also statistically significant(P<0.05). The proportion of soldiers smoking1to20cigarettes a day in the past month（P<0.05）, the average number of DGGE bands（P<0.05）and Shannon index (P=0.003)of soldiers in the plateau group are47.22%（17/36）,29±2.64,1.77±0.14, and of soldiersin the plain group11.54%（3/26）,40±5.65,2.08±0.22, in which the differences betweenthe two groups are statistically significant. The number of Streptococcus oralis andFusobacterium periodontium in saliva samples from soldiers in the plateau group arehigher than that in saliva samples from soldiers in the plain group.Conclusion:1. The periodontal health status of soldiers in plateau area is better than thatof soldiers in plain area.2. Educational level of military personnel is correlated with periodontal health status.3. Plateau environment may play a role in the reduced diversities of oral microbial floraof military personnel.4. DGGE fingerprint of salivary bacterium from people living in the same environmenthave a high similarity.