http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/298589.php
"The oropharynx of schizophrenics seems to harbor different proportions of oral bacteria than healthy individuals," said Eduardo Castro-Nallar, a Ph.D. candidate at GW's Computational Biology Institute (CBI) and lead author of the study. "Specifically, our analyses revealed an association between microbes such as lactic-acid bacteria and schizophrenics."
Recent studies have shown that microbiomes--the communities of microbes living within our bodies--can affect the immune system and may be connected to mental health. Research linking immune disorders and schizophrenia has also been published, and this study furthers the possibility that shifts in oral communities are associated with schizophrenia.