Taking a Closer Look at Nutrition’s Role

Eastman Institute for Oral Health is teaming up with Rochester Institute of Technology to take a closer look at nutritional factors during pregnancy and in infancy that can negatively impact a baby’s oral health.

Dr. Jin Xiao’s research has shown that among underserved racial and ethnic minoritized groups, when certain bacteria and yeast are present in the mother’s mouth, the child’s likelihood to get severe tooth decay increases.

Since 2019, Brenda Ariba Zarhari Abu, PhD, RDN, assistant professor in RIT’s Wegmans School of Health and Nutrition, has been collaborating with Dr. Xiao and other University of Rochester researchers for a study she’s leading that assesses pica practice, oral health, and oral microbiome during pregnancy.

Pica, occurring most often in pregnant women and children, is compulsively eating items that have no nutritional value, including harmless items like ice, as well as potentially dangerous items like dried paint, clay, soil or metal.

“People who have iron deficiency crave the taste and smell of non-food substances that make iron deficiency worse,” Dr. Abu said. “Pica may cause infections and the result can be devastating on maternal health, fetal development and can carry long-lasting consequences.”

This new grant, awarded by the National Institute Dental and Craniofacial Research, will fund OMEI + Nutrition, Impact of Nutrition on Oral Microbiome in Early Infancy, to examine perinatal nutritive such as dietary iron intake and nonnutritive behavior such as pica and their relationships with oral microbiomes during pregnancy and early life.

Bringing together the expertise of Drs. Xiao and Abu, the two-year, $380K grant will assess the effect of nutritive and nonnutritive eating behavior on the oral microbiome of pregnant women, assess the impact of maternal nutritive and nonnutritive eating behavior on infants’ early-life oral yeast colonization and infection, and to explore microbial compositions of pica substances.

“The OMEI + Nutrition is the first study that examines the relationship between nutritive, such as dietary iron intake, and nonnutritive such as pica factors, on perinatal oral microbiome among underserved U.S. pregnant women and their children,” said Dr. Xiao. “The data generated will strengthen the understanding of children’s oral microbiome development and their association to tooth decay.”

Other risk factors revealed from this study could be used as targets or prenatal counseling and ECC early prediction and prevention, specifically among underserved women and children.

The grant will also support Dr. Abu’s career development. “With my training and expertise in nutrition, my long-term career goal is to bridge the gaps in nutrition and oral research, and generate groundbreaking interventions for early warning, early detection, and prevention of oral diseases among underserved mothers and their young children,” said Dr. Abu.

Pica, occurring most often in pregnant women and children, is compulsively eating items that have no nutritional value, including harmless items like ice, as well as potentially dangerous items like dried paint, clay, soil or metal.