4. Discussion
PROTEIN DEFICIENCIES
Our study demonstrates that increasing protein intake from an average of 0.8 g/kg aBW/d to 1.2 g/kg aBW/d does not affect self-reported oral health status in older adults. Moreover, whereas moderate effects were observed on the overall microbiota composition based on alpha- and beta-diversity measures, no individual bacterial taxa were found to be specifically affected.To our knowledge, we were the first to study the effects of increasing protein intake on either oral health or the oral microbiota composition in older adults. Although protein deficiencies have previously been suggested to negatively impact oral health [As for the effect of protein intake on the oral microbiota, some studies have demonstrated periodontitis-associated bacterial communities to display the elevated expression of proteolytic genes [