Oral medicineEffects of eating disorders on oral fungal diversity

BackgroundThe eating disorders anorexia and bulimia nervosa can cause several systemic and oral alterations related to poor nutrition and induced vomiting; however, the oral microflora of these patients is poorly studied.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to evaluate fungal microflora in the oral cavity of these patients by culture-dependent and culture-independent methods.Study DesignOral rinse samples were cultured to assess the prevalence of Candida species, and the isolates were identified by API system. Microorganism counts were compared by the Mann-Whitney test (5%). Ribotyping, a type of molecular analysis, was performed by sequencing the D1/D2 regions of 28S rRNA.ResultsOur results demonstrated that the eating disorder group showed higher oral Candida spp. prevalence with culture-dependent methods and higher species diversity with culture-independent methods.ConclusionsEating disorders can lead to an increased oral Candida carriage. Culture-independent identification found greater fungal diversity than culture-dependent methods.