Drinking alcohol is associated with variation in the human oral microbiome in a large study of American adults

Microbiome

Table 1 Demographic characteristics of the study participants

	Non-drinkers (n = 270)		Moderate drinkers* (n = 614)		Heavy drinkers* (n = 160)		p value^†
	N	%	N	%	N	%
Age^‡		68.3 ± 7.0		67.6 ± 7.4		66.8 ± 6.8	0.092
Gender
Male	150	55.6	412	67.1	103	64.4
Female	120	44.4	202	32.9	57	35.6	0.0044
Race
White	255	94.4	581	94.6	157	98.1
Non-White	15	5.6	33	5.4	3	1.9	0.16
BMI, kg/m²
< 25	87	32.2	226	36.8	70	43.7
25–< 30	114	42.2	273	44.5	64	40.0
≥ 30	69	25.6	115	18.7	26	16.3	0.039
Education
High school or less	96	33.6	188	30.6	39	24.4	0.014
Some college	93	34.4	178	29.0	54	33.8
College graduate or higher	81	30.0	248	40.4	67	41.9
Smoking status
Never	157	58.1	266	43.3	38	23.8
Former	92	34.1	301	49.0	98	61.3
Current	21	7.8	47	7.7	24	15.0	< 0.0001

.According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, moderate drinking was defined as > 0 to 1 drink per day for women and > 0 to 2 drinks per day for men; more than 1 drink per day for women and 2 drinks per day for men was defined as heavy drinking
^†p values were from chi-square test or ANOVA
^‡Mean and standard deviation were calculated

ISSN: 2049-2618