Coffee brew effects on oral health

During the last decade epidemiological studies have demonstrated a clear relationship between diet and health and this has resulted in new roles being ascribed to foods. Foods are now regarded not only as being an indispensable source of nutriment, but are also considered to be beneficial in many ways or as the cause of serious chronic diseases with strong socio-economic implications. Caries and gingivitis are the most prevalent chronic diseases of humans. They are endogenous infections caused by dental plaque produced by those plaque bacteria that ferment dietary carbohydrates. The most common aetiological agents are considered to be oral Streptococci like Streptococcus mutans and Streptococcus sobrinus. Several approaches are possible to caries and gingivitis prevention and to improve oral health. One of these may be the elimination of the causative organisms and so the prevention of bacterial adhesion and /or plaque formation. Chemicals able to achieve this purpose have been shown to be present in a number of foods such as tea, propolis, cacao and plants used in the popular medicine. Coffee brew, that is one the most widely consumed beverages in the world, is a very complex mixture of several hundred chemicals that show both biological and pharmacological activities. Roasted coffee was shown to possess antibacterial activity against a wide range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including Streptococcus mutans. It should be noted that green coffee did not show antibacterial activity. Moreover, it has been shown that roasted coffee interferes with streptococcal sucrose-independent adsorption to hydroxyapatite beads. Such activities may be due to small molecules occurring naturally or that occur during the roasting process. The emergence of pathogens resistant to conventional antibacterial agents and the need to develop new strategies for the control of infectious diseases make coffee’s antibacterial properties of particular interest. So the antibacterial activity (MIC and MBC) of coffee brew was determined against ten oral Streptococci. Dialysis and gel filtration chromatography allowed to separate a low molecular weight fraction with antibacterial activity. Since the results we obtained demonstrate that coffee showed bacteriostatic and bactericidal against oral Streptococci, we also studied the components responsible for this effect.