A research team at Ohio State has found a possible new way to determine ethnicity: the oral bacteria under your gums in your mouth! Kind of weird... I know.
The group took 100 individuals of races: African American (non-latin), Hispanic, Caucasian, and Chinese to test on.
The bacteria, 398 species from all parts of the mouth, were sequenced for their DNA since living conditions of these bacteria is not really possible in a Petri dish.
What did they find? Only 2% of the bacterial species matched in all of the participants. The breakthrough came in that certain species of bacteria were specific to each ethnicity. Pretty cool huh?!
The researchers concluded that it may be due to each ethnicity's DNA that causes certain strains of bacteria to be present in only one ethnicity. Also, this may give insight as to why Hispanics and African Americans are more susceptible to certain gum diseases versus other ethnicities.
The group did find that the best results of bacteria exclusive to ethnicity are under the gums. This could be due to mouth washes and toothpaste constantly being used on the surface bacteria.
I ask you this again, what happens with people that are more than one ethnicity?
Here is the link:
Oral Bacteria Create a 'Fingerprint' in the Mouth
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