Colour of your tongue can be sign of heart disease, study shows

A red tongue is a sign of heart disease and closer monitoring of the organ could be used to track our heart health, according to research. The new study looked at bacteria on the tongue and found there is a lot we can find out about our hearts.

Lead author Dr Tianhui Yuan said: "The tongues of patients with chronic heart failure look totally different to those of healthy people. Normal tongues are pale red with a pale white coating. Heart failure patients have a redder tongue with a yellow coating and the appearance changes as the disease becomes more advanced."

Dr Yuan explained: "Our study found the composition, quantity and dominant bacteria of the tongue coating differ between heart failure patients and healthy people." She added: "Tongue microbes provide window to heart health."

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Her team compared samples from 42 patients in hospital with chronic heart failure and 28 healthy controls. Crucially, the same types of microorganisms were specific to each group - with no overlap between them. In particular, five categories of bacteria distinguished the heart failure patients from the others.

What's more there was a downward trend in levels of two strains called Eubacterium and Solobacterium among the most seriously ill. Dr. Yuan, of the No.1 Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, said: "More research is needed but our results suggest tongue microbes - which are easy to obtain - could assist with wide-scale screening, diagnosis and long-term monitoring of heart failure."

Scientists have previously suggested using the technique for earlier diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It's the most deadly form of the disease as it's usually caught too late - when it's already spread to other organs.

Certain bacteria are linked to immunity. An imbalance in the trillions of bacteria that live on the tongue may stimulate inflammation - which can trigger heart failure. Stainless steel spoons were used to scrape the participants' tongue coatings in the morning - before they had brushed their teeth or eaten breakfast.

Gene sequencing was used to identify their bacteria. They were all free of oral, tongue or dental diseases and chest or throat infections. None had used antibiotics or immuno-suppressant drugs in the past week or were pregnant or breastfeeding.

Dr Yuan said: "The underlying mechanisms connecting microorganisms in the tongue coating with heart function deserve further study."

Around 920,000 people in the UK suffer with heart failure - a debilitating condition that causes breathlessness. It seriously affects quality of life. It places a greater burden on the health service than the four most common cancers combined.

Numbers are being fuelled by an ageing population, more people surviving heart attacks and stubbornly high rates of risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes. The British Heart Foundation says better ways of detecting, diagnosing and treating heart failure are urgently needed - including improved care in communities.

The findings were presented at a virtual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.