Depressive symptoms favor abundant growth of salivary lactobacilli

Objective: The purpose was to study the growth of lactobacilli in subjects with depressive symptoms in the total 55-year-old population of Oulu (a med ium-sized town in Finland); 780 people participated. Methods: The dental ex amination included measurements of salivary lactobacillus growth with the D entocult-LB method; measurements of salivary flow rate, pH, and buffering c apacity; and assessment of oral health status. Depressive symptoms were det ermined with the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZSDS). Participants wer e also asked about their health, medication, smoking, and dietary habits. R esults: The prevalence of high lac lobacillus counts (greater than or equal to 100,000 CFU/ml) was 22% among women and 31% among men (p = .02). Thirty -seven percent of the subjects with a high rate of depressive symptoms (ZSD S score of greater than or equal to 40) and 23% of those with an ZSDS score of less than or equal to 39 had high counts of lactobacilli (p = .003). A logistic regression analysis with improvement of goodness of fit was made t o confirm the relation between abundant lactobacilli and a high rate of dep ressive symptoms. After the confounding factors had been added stepwise int o the logistic regression model, depressive symptoms were still significant ly associated with abundant lactobacillus growth, Conclusions: The associat ion between high lactobacillus counts and depressive symptoms suggests that depressed subjects are at risk of having caries and possibly other dental diseases that should be recognized in the treatment of these patients.