Heart-saver: There are up to 700 different bacteria in the human mouth. New studies report that some can trigger a biological cascade linked to heart attacks and stroke.
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Stressed proteins
In separate research, a team led by Greg Seymour of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, showed how other mouth bacteria can provoke atherosclerosis, a disease that causes hardening of the arteries.
All organisms – including humans and bacteria – produce "stress proteins," molecules produced by conditions such as inflammation, toxins, starvation, or oxygen deprivation. One function of stress proteins is to guide other proteins across cell membranes.
But they can also can latch onto foreign objects, called antigens, and deliver then to immune cells, provoking an immune reactions in the body.
Normally, the body does not attack its own stress proteins. But bacterial stress proteins – which are similar – do trigger a response, and once that has happened the immune system can no longer differentiate between the two, said Seymour.
"White blood cells can build up in the tissue of arteries, causing atherosclerosis," he explained in a phone interview.
