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Dental Tribune Middle East & Africa Edition | 3/2017 NEWS 47 Study finds Zendium toothpaste to promote healthy balance of mouth bacteria Brushing with Zendium toothpaste has shown to promote a healthy oral microbiome. (Photograph: Photo-Mix/Pixabay) By DTI SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Good oral health depends to a large extent on the balance between health-associat- ed and disease-associated bacteria in the mouth. New research, presented at the General Session and Exhibi- tion of the International Association for Dental Research in San Francisco in March, has proven that Zendium, a Unilever toothpaste brand availa- ble in most of Europe and the Middle East, promotes such a balanced oral microbiome as the first of its kind. According to the study, which was published in the Scientific Reports journal earlier this year, the enzyme- and protein-containing toothpaste significantly increased health-asso- ciated bacteria and reduced disease- associated bacteria in the oral plaque microbiome in subjects brushing with Zendium over a period of 14 weeks. As a result, a microbial com- munity with a stronger association with health was formed, compared with baseline, the researchers said in their report. It is the first time that a toothpaste has been shown to significantly shift the oral microbiome at species level, according to Unilever. For their study, the researchers used the Hu- man Oral Microbiome Database and next-generation DNA sequencing techniques in order to characterise the oral plaque microbiome. The research was also conducted in cooperation with internationally leading genomic research centres. “The mouth houses the second-most diverse microbiome in the body, and now advanced molecular techniques have enabled us to better under- stand how it is possible to promote a balanced microbiome,” commented Dr Alison Green, Director of Oral Care Research at Unilever, on the results. Available on the market since the 1970s, Zendium has a formulation that boasts a number of natural en- zymes and proteins that are similar to those found in saliva, where they are known to promote a healthy mi- crobiome. The study, titled “A randomised clini- cal study to determine the effect of a toothpaste containing enzymes and proteins on plaque oral microbiome ecology”, was published online on 27 February in Scientific Reports.