The Oral Microbiome and All-Cause Mortality in a US Population-Representative Prospective Cohort

No large studies have evaluated whether the human oral microbiome is directly associated with mortality. We evaluated prospective associations between the oral microbiome, measured using 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing, from participants aged 20-69 years in the 2009-2012 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and all-cause mortality (N = 7721, representing ∼194 million individuals). Alpha diversity was inversely associated with mortality, and some significant associations were observed with the beta diversity matrices. Higher relative abundances of Granulicatella and Lactobacillus were associated with increased risk, while Bacteroides was associated with decreased all-cause mortality at the genus level. Results suggest that oral bacterial communities may be important contributors to health and disease.