Prof. John Tagg from Blis answered some questions
Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 3:13 pm
I sent a few questions to blis and got a response back from the main man himself. If anyone is interested, read on.
These were my questions:
1. Why not replicate the entire Streptococcus Salivarius species and not just certain strains like K12 and M18.? Or is this incredibly difficult?
2. You said that we can't alter the microbiome but many halitosis sufferers got their bad breath after a round of antibiotics, usually in their teens. I believe the same thing happened to me. I'm assuming they wiped out Streptococcus Salivarius and anaerobic bacteria was allowed to dominate the mouth instead. One halitosis study done in the early 2000s found no trace of Streptococcus Salivarius in halitosis sufferers at all. Please comment.
3. I'm 24 years old and have been suffering from halitosis for as long as I can remember. I was going to attempt a fecal matter transplant to restore my oral microbiome before I discovered K12. There are success stories on the internet of people doing this to cure other bacterial imbalances. Has your team looked into this idea?
Email reply from Blis:
Hi gotshot26,
Prof John Tagg has responded to your questions that you sent last week. Apologies its has taken us a week to come back to you – he is a hard man to pin down.
Please let us know if you have additional questions.
Kind regards
Team Blis
In response to the customer’s comments
1. We have selected the bacteria called K12 and M18 after testing thousands of S. salivarius from many hundreds of people. The reasons for selecting these particular bacteria included (a) they are specially good at producing natural antibacterial activity (called blis) in human saliva (b) their blis activity interferes with the growth of certain other (especially streptococcal) bacteria in the mouth that sometimes can cause infections (sore throats, tooth decay etc) if their growth is not restrained (c) The K12 and M18 bacteria were subjected to intensive evaluation (in the laboratory and in experimental subjects) prior to releasing them for use as probiotics (microbes able to produce a health benefit when used in a specified manner). To use a mixture of large numbers of different S. salivarius would require each individual (pedigree or lineage) of the bacteria to be exhaustively tested (as above) and approved before it could be marketed. Also the composition of mixtures such as that would be very difficult to control.
2. Yes, prolonged use of particular antibiotics (especially those active against streptococci such as penicillin) can alter the balance of microbes on the tongue (and elsewhere) resulting in overgrowth of less penicillin sensitive species (including proteolytic, smelly anaerobes). It can take some time to replenish the population of fermentative (non smelly) streptococci. Regular use of K12 has been shown to be helpful.
3. We have not done studies of the use of faecal populations to aid halitosis control. The microbes of the gut are predominantly adapted to growth in the lower intestinal tract and most would not be expected to establish long term beneficial residence in the oral cavity. On the other hand we are quite interested in assessing in ongoing studies whether our oral cavity probiotic S. salivarius strains, on passing from the mouth into the gut might possibly also confer a health benefit there to the consumer.
Hope these thoughts are of interest
Cheers
John Tagg
These were my questions:
1. Why not replicate the entire Streptococcus Salivarius species and not just certain strains like K12 and M18.? Or is this incredibly difficult?
2. You said that we can't alter the microbiome but many halitosis sufferers got their bad breath after a round of antibiotics, usually in their teens. I believe the same thing happened to me. I'm assuming they wiped out Streptococcus Salivarius and anaerobic bacteria was allowed to dominate the mouth instead. One halitosis study done in the early 2000s found no trace of Streptococcus Salivarius in halitosis sufferers at all. Please comment.
3. I'm 24 years old and have been suffering from halitosis for as long as I can remember. I was going to attempt a fecal matter transplant to restore my oral microbiome before I discovered K12. There are success stories on the internet of people doing this to cure other bacterial imbalances. Has your team looked into this idea?
Email reply from Blis:
Hi gotshot26,
Prof John Tagg has responded to your questions that you sent last week. Apologies its has taken us a week to come back to you – he is a hard man to pin down.
Please let us know if you have additional questions.
Kind regards
Team Blis
In response to the customer’s comments
1. We have selected the bacteria called K12 and M18 after testing thousands of S. salivarius from many hundreds of people. The reasons for selecting these particular bacteria included (a) they are specially good at producing natural antibacterial activity (called blis) in human saliva (b) their blis activity interferes with the growth of certain other (especially streptococcal) bacteria in the mouth that sometimes can cause infections (sore throats, tooth decay etc) if their growth is not restrained (c) The K12 and M18 bacteria were subjected to intensive evaluation (in the laboratory and in experimental subjects) prior to releasing them for use as probiotics (microbes able to produce a health benefit when used in a specified manner). To use a mixture of large numbers of different S. salivarius would require each individual (pedigree or lineage) of the bacteria to be exhaustively tested (as above) and approved before it could be marketed. Also the composition of mixtures such as that would be very difficult to control.
2. Yes, prolonged use of particular antibiotics (especially those active against streptococci such as penicillin) can alter the balance of microbes on the tongue (and elsewhere) resulting in overgrowth of less penicillin sensitive species (including proteolytic, smelly anaerobes). It can take some time to replenish the population of fermentative (non smelly) streptococci. Regular use of K12 has been shown to be helpful.
3. We have not done studies of the use of faecal populations to aid halitosis control. The microbes of the gut are predominantly adapted to growth in the lower intestinal tract and most would not be expected to establish long term beneficial residence in the oral cavity. On the other hand we are quite interested in assessing in ongoing studies whether our oral cavity probiotic S. salivarius strains, on passing from the mouth into the gut might possibly also confer a health benefit there to the consumer.
Hope these thoughts are of interest
Cheers
John Tagg