Oral Health and Related Factors Associated with General Health and Quality of Life

Servant leadership, brand love, and work ethic: important predictors of general health in workers in the education sector

Background

Building a path aimed at the wellbeing of workers in the education sector is the fundamental basis to encourage quality education. To fill the gap in knowledge and address this aspect by understanding the behavior of the study population, it was proposed as with the objective of determining if servant leadership, brand love and work ethic predict the general health in workers.

Methods

A non-probability sampling was applied for convenience. For this purpose, a sample of 509 workers from Peru was submitted to study, who completed a questionnaire consisting of: scale of servant leadership, work ethic, GHQ-12 and brand love. By applying a quantitative method using a structural equation modeling partial least squares approach.

Results

The present study demonstrated that the three constructs (servant leadership, brand love, and work ethic) predict the general health of workers in a positive and significant way, in a sample of Peruvian workers in the education sector. Furthermore, the results suggest that these factors can be used to improve the health of employees in educational institutions in Peru and possibly in other contexts as well.

Conclusion

Given these results and after knowing the solidity of the predictions, the importance of promoting general health in workers in the education sector.

Daily Exposure to a Cranberry Polyphenol Oral Rinse Alters the Oral Microbiome but Not Taste Perception in PROP Taster Status Classified Individuals

Diet and salivary proteins influence the composition of the oral microbiome, and recent data suggest that TAS2R38 bitter taste genetics may also play a role. We investigated the effects of daily exposure to a cranberry polyphenol oral rinse on taste perception, salivary proteins, and oral microbiota. 6-n-Propylthiouracil (PROP) super-tasters (ST, n = 10) and non-tasters (NT, n = 10) rinsed with 30 mL of 0.75 g/L cranberry polyphenol extract (CPE) in spring water, twice daily for 11 days while consuming their habitual diets. The 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed that the NT oral microbiome composition was different than that of STs at baseline (p = 0.012) but not after the intervention (p = 0.525). Principal coordinates analysis using unweighted UniFrac distance showed that CPE modified microbiome composition in NTs (p = 0.023) but not in STs (p = 0.096). The intervention also altered specific salivary protein levels (α-amylase, MUC-5B, and selected S-type Cystatins) with no changes in sensory perception. Correlation networks between oral microbiota, salivary proteins, and sensory ratings showed that the ST microbiome had a more complex relationship with salivary proteins, particularly proline-rich proteins, than that in NTs. These findings show that CPE modulated the oral microbiome of NTs to be similar to that of STs, which could have implications for oral health.

Gustatory Dysfunction among a Sample of Depressed Egyptian Adults under Antidepressants Therapy: A Retrospective Cohort Study

It is quite clear that the ability to perceive taste sensations significantly affects food choice, which consequently affects health status in the long term. Gustatory dysfunction is a neglected symptom among the depressed patients and those under antidepressants therapy, although these patients are suspectable to oral problems, due to general self-negligence related to mental disease, fear of dental treatment, and side effects of varied medications utilized in psychiatry. This study is aimed at assessing gustatory thresholds (detection and recognition thresholds) among a sample of 30 depressed Egyptian adults under antidepressants therapy for at least 3 months or psychotherapy with age ranging from 20 to 50 years old, seeking the Psychiatric Clinic at the Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Egypt. These patients were distributed into three equal groups (tricyclic antidepressants (TCA), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and psychotherapy) and were assessed for gustatory detection and recognition thresholds using the filter paper disc method through a scoring system. The participants were also divided into normal taste group in which both the detection and recognition scores were 1, while the scores from 2 till 5 were considered as hypogeusia group and the score of 6 was considered as dysgeusia group. The TCA group was statistically significant from the other 2 groups in sweet detection thresholds (p = 0.043) and sweet recognition thresholds (p = 0.007). Hypogeusia for sweet was statistically significant (p = 0.041), where it was more common among TCA (70%) than both SSRIs and the psychotherapy group (20%). Gustatory dysfunction was found to be mostly associated with TCA followed by SSRIs particularly for sweet taste thresholds. More attention has to be given to taste changes among these patients as oral health affects general health by causing considerable pain and by changing what people eat, their speech, and their quality of life and wellbeing. Proper awareness and evaluation of this problem will improve the quality of life for the depressed patients and avoid unnecessary treatment. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03599011.