Dealing with Bacteria

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manarnia
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Dealing with Bacteria

Post by manarnia »

Hi, my project is " How does Oil Pulling affect oral bacteria". Oil pulling is an old Indian method claiming to help decrease oral plaque, bacteria, and even tooth decay. It's a method using natural oils as a mouth wash, preferably coconut or sesame oil. I want to test this method to measure and find out how effective it is. One reason, I chose this project is because the idea has gone viral though out YouTube ( where I discovered what it is ) and websites that claim all of what the oil pulling method does, but little to no real proofs or proper research . I'm wondering for this experiment if I should compare it with other mouthwashes or experiment just the oil pulling and figure out how effective it really is. Any ideas on a good way to perform this experiment? If so, what method should to use to experiment? I'm thinking of having students brush their teeth, swish the oils, and take a sample of their oral bacteria and grow it in petri dishes. Of coarse after their parent's or guardians permission. But then I'll need to figure out how to measure and analyze bacterial colonies. I know I need as much help as I can!

Thanks in advance.
catherineM99
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Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by catherineM99 »

Hi Manarnia,

This is an interesting experiment! To test whether oil pulling is an effective method at reducing mouth bacteria, you need a control group; a control group is the group in the study that doesn’t receive the treatment. In your experiment, your control group can be the group of people who continue their normal dental hygiene habits and do not receive the oil pulling treatment. Then, you could compare the average amount of bacteria change of the group who received the oil pulling treatment and the average bacteria change of the control group. Like you said, your experiment could also test the performance of oil pulling on mouth bacteria compared to the performance of the conventially used mouthwash. You should ensure that you use random sampling to choose whether a student will go in the control group or the test group. To test the effectiveness of oil pulling, measure and record the amount of bacteria in an individual’s mouth before and after oil pulling and calculate the rate of change. The results may not occur instantaneously, so you may want to wait at least a day before measuring the amount of bacteria in each individuals’ mouth. This science blog may give you insight on how to actually measure the amount of bacteria in an individuals mouth: http://www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/vo ... -fast.html . Suggestions include scraping off the plague from a specific area of the mouth and weighing it, then using the fact that “1 mg of oral biomass typically contains about 100 million microbes” to estimate the amount of bacteria.

Good luck!
~Catherine M.
MadelineB
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Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by MadelineB »

Hi Manarnia,

This is a fascinating project and the previous expert has given you very good advice. There is another way to get the control or baseline information. That would be to have each subject be their own control! How would this work? You would measure the bacteria for each subject using each subject's routine dental hygiene procedure. You might want to make these measurements each day for several days. That would let you evaluate how much the bacteria level varied day by day for each subject.

Then you would have each subject use the pulling method, and then measure the bacteria level.

As the previous expert suggests, you might want to have each subject repeat the pulling and the measurements each day for several days. This would let you evaluate if there is a cumulative effect.

The final comparison would be based on the change in bacteria level seen for each subject, and then you would evaluate the distribution of the change across subjects.

Since different subjects may have different dental hygiene procedures and that might affect their baseline bacteria level, you will want to record the procedure for each subject. Also record the time between dental hygiene and your measurements, since you will want that time to be similar for each subject for each day.

One more thing, if you are intending to submit this project to a science fair, and you are using human subjects, you will need to follow the informed consent procedures for that fair.

Let us know if you have more questions!
manarnia
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Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:51 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by manarnia »

Thanks you guys so much! Your contribution have been very helpful and informal to me.

My next questions would be:

- I'm still not clear on how to measure the bacteria from each subject. What ideal method should I use when measuring the bacteria from each of the subjects?; What part of the mouth do I sample from? How do you measure bacteria levels without taking the time to grow it? / How do you weigh bacteria?

I do have insight on the mathematical sense of how much bacteria is in our mouths, and how often they re-form.

- Does age matter in terms of my project? If so, what ages would be ideal and most resulting? Or should I use subjects of random/ different ages?

Again, thanks!
MadelineB
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Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by MadelineB »

Hello Manarnia,

First to answer your question how to measure the bacteria: The expert Catherine recommended a link which scraped the plaque from every tooth. You might want to pick a standard set of teeth, like those which are most accessible! You will want to use the same set of teeth for all of your measurements. You will also want to be careful to use the same amount of scraping.

Your second question about age: First, if you are going to use each subject as their own control, so you measure the plaque before and after each dental hygiene session, then age is likely to have less influence than if you had a group of controls and a group of treated subjects. However, you should definitely keep track of age. that way you can evaluate the association between age and the amount of plaque before the treatment, as well as any association between age and the amount of change.

As for how to weigh the plaque, you will want to find a sensitive scale since you will be looking at small values. Perhaps a science teacher in your school could help you find a suitable scale (also referred to as a "balance").

Be sure to let us know if you have more questions!
manarnia
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Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:51 pm
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Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by manarnia »

Hi again!

I have about a week to plan exactly how I'm going to conduct my experiment because after the thanks giving break, I'll have to start. When I was passing out the human informed consent forms today, I realized I still needed to figure out a few more things; Do my subjects all have to do the ill pulling method at the same time? Or can each person incorporate the method in their own sense of time, consistently? Considering the fact that each subject is their own control. Same thing for when I come to scale their plaque.

I got a milligram scale and I'm having micro scoop sticks coming on their way. I'm using the sticks for when measuring the place. Do they need sterilizing of some sort? And do I scale with the tiny spoon or do I have to somehow scrape the plaque onto the scale? Any way I really need to figure this out, and you've been the best help so far.

Thanks
MadelineB
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Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by MadelineB »

Hi manarnia,
Congratulations on your dedication working through the design of your project!

Answer to you first question: Since you are having each subject be their own control, it should work if each subject did the oil pulling etc on their own schedule, as long as each subject kept to their own schedule.

You should definitely have each subject record the day/time they do their hygiene etc. Warning - by letting the time vary between subjects, you are introducing a new variable, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that the effect of the oil pulling varied depending on when the subject did the pulling! (No one said science was easy! (grin))!

Second question: Check your balance (scale) to see if you can "tare" the micro scoop sticks. If that is possible, then tare the balance (the balance readout will be ZERO when the scoop stick is being weighted). Now you can just weigh the scoop stick plus the plaque, and the balance readout will be the weight of the plaque.

Third question: It would be best if you could sterilize the scoop sticks - first, the scoop sticks are going in your subject's mouth, and second, you wouldn't want the plaque weight to get bigger if contamination on the sticks made something grow, furthermore, you don't really want to have to worry that the sticks are now contaminated.

I'm wondering how you plan to have the subjects store the scoop sticks after they've scraped the plaque? How soon after that, will you weigh the plaque? Just thinking about more details!

Let us know how your project is progressing ... and be sure to let us know if you have more questions!
manarnia
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Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:51 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by manarnia »

Hi! And thank you so much because I am super grateful to have you!

So I'm planning on have each subject meet me at a certain time in the day, for five days. All of my subjects are part of my school community. I have ninth graders in my class doing the experiment, and I have a few adults too. I'm having a little hard time convincing people to participate in doing my experiment, but I'm going to keep on getting as much subjects as I can. When I meet each of my subjects during the school day, I'll have my scale and microbe scoop sticks and will get a scrape of their plaque and scale it. I will record my readings and their dental routine.

What if one of my subjects changes their dental routine thought the week or forgets to oil pull?

How do I sterilize my microbe scoops if they're plastic? (I haven't taken them out of their bag or touched them)
manarnia
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2016 2:51 pm
Occupation: Student

Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by manarnia »

Oh do you have an easier way to scale the plaque of each subject each day? For instance how I can maybe store them till I get home or lab classroom after school...
MadelineB
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Re: Dealing with Bacteria

Post by MadelineB »

Hi Manarnia,
You bring up some excellent questions!

First, regarding sterilizing the scoop sticks and storing the scoops after you've taken the plaque, I am going to ask for help from some of the microbiology experts here!

As for some of your subjects changing their schedule or forgetting, you want to be sure they tell you so you can keep a record. I also suggest that you record whether the subject is a 9th grader or an adult (or even record the age, but maybe the adults might decline to share that with you!!)

I understand that it might be time consuming to have to weight the scoop sticks immediately, but that would certainly be the ideal approach. If that is not practical, then you need to definitely record the time the plaque is scraped and then the time you weigh the sticks.

I wonder if you could think of some inexpensive prize you could offer your potential subjects in order to encourage them to participate? Like maybe a pizza party?!!

I will try to get expert opinions about sterilizing and storing the scoops.

In the meantime, let us know if you have more questions!
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