ABSTRACT
This article aims to verify the relationship between the composition and diversity of oral microbiota with overweight and obese children and adolescents. This systematic review was registered in PROSPERO, followed PRISMA 2020, and included an electronic search until March 2022, in PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, and The Cochrane Library databases. Studies were eligible if they compared the oral microbiota according to nutrition status among children and adolescents. Independent peers using JBI Critical Appraisal Checklists assessed the quality of studies. Eleven studies were eligible to be included in this review, with a total of 1,695 children and adolescents, 224 were obese, 190 were overweight, 1,154 were eutrophics and 127 were underweight. The most frequent phyla in overweight and obese children and adolescents, in comparison to their counterparts were Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Fusobacteria. It was identified that nine of the eleven articles selected showed an association between oral microbiota and overweight and obesity in children and adolescents. We observed that there is an important association between oral bacterial composition diversity and overweight and obesity. This finding indicates the relevance of the evaluation and surveillance in oral health to control cases of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents.
ABSTRACT
SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has forced frequent testing of populations. It is necessary to identify the most cost-effective strategies for the detection of COVID-19 outbreaks. Nasopharyngeal samples have been used for SARS-CoV-2 detection but require a healthcare professional to collect the sample and cause discomfort and pain to the individual. Saliva has been suggested as an appropriate fluid for the diagnosis of COVID-19. We have investigated the possibility of using pools of saliva samples to detect SARS-CoV-2 in symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. Two hundred and seventy-nine saliva samples were analyzed through RT-PCR of Envelope, Nucleocapsid and Open Reading Frame 1ab genes. Reproducibility assays showed an almost perfect agreement as well as high sensitivity (96.6%), specificity (96.8%), positive predicted value (96.6%), and negative predicted value (96.8%). The average Cycle Threshold of the genes detected was 29.7. No significant differences (p > 0.05) were detected when comparing the cycle threshold average of two consecutive reactions on the same positive saliva samples. Saliva samples have a higher median viral load (32.6) than in nasopharyngeal samples (28.9), although no significant differences were detected (p > 0.05). Saliva-pool samples allowed effective SARS-CoV-2 screening, with a higher sensibility (96.9%) on 10-sample pools than in 20-sample pools (87.5%). Regardless of pools size specificity was high (99.9%) and an almost perfect agreement was observed. Our strategy was successfully applied in population wide testing of more than 2000 individuals, showing that it is possible to use pooled saliva as diagnostic fluid for SARS-CoV-2 infection.
