Oral Piercings and Beer - the truth.

Does Drinking Beer with an Oral Piercing Cause a Yeast Infection?

One of the most pervasive body piercing myths is the idea that if you drink a brewed alcoholic beverage, you will get “yeast” into the piercing, thus getting a “yeast infection”.  Fortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.  Why is this? 

In the same way there are lots of different cars, there are also a lot of different yeasts.  Some are good for baking bread, some are good for brewing beer, and some are pathogenic.  Beer brewers and bread bakers do not use pathogenic yeast to brew beer or bake bread.  In the same way that you cannot change a Chevy Malibu to a Nissan Altima, you can’t change edible yeast to pathogenic yeast.

An example of a pathogenic yeast strain is Cryptococcus neoformans (which usually causes a disease called Cryptococcosis in people with compromised immune systems). [1] An oral yeast infection in an otherwise healthy person is known as Candidiasis.

“Candida is commonly found as a commensal yeast in the mucus membranes of humans and other warm-blooded animals. However, sometimes these same strains can become pathogenic... The pathogenic yeasts of candidiasis in probable descending order of virulence for humans are: C. albicans, C. tropicalis, C. stellatoidea, C. glabrata, C. krusei, C. parapsilosis, C. guilliermondii, C. viswanathii, C. lusitaniae and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa. Candida glabrata is the second most common Candida pathogen after C. albicans, causing infections of the urogenital tract, and of the bloodstream (Candidemia).” [2]

So we know that Candidiasis is caused by Candida, which makes a lot of sense.  What kind of yeasts do beer brewers use? There are actually quite a few different kinds that result in different beers and different brewing styles.

“Beer brewers classify yeasts as top-fermenting and bottom-fermenting... An example of a top-fermenting yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, known to brewers as ale yeast. Bottom-fermenting yeasts are used to produce lager-type beers. These yeasts ferment more sugars, leaving a crisper taste, and grow well at low temperatures. An example of a bottom-fermenting yeast is Saccharomyces uvarum...

Brewers of Bavarian-style wheat beers often use varieties of Torulaspora delbrueckii, which contribute to the distinctive flavour profile. Lambic, a style of Belgian beer, is fermented spontaneously by wild yeasts primarily of the genus Brettanomyces.” [2]

You will notice that none of those yeasts is a Candida variant.  That’s because Candida yeast is drastically different from brewing yeast.  The point being that drinking a beer is totally safe because the yeast in it cannot under any circumstances cause an infection.  Beer yeast is not pathogenic yeast.

It is frustrating that body piercers will come up with fallacies like the oral piercing yeast infection myth, because it takes so little research to disprove.  The Association of Professional Piercers (APP) made it very easy by writing an article in the winter 2003 issue of “The Point”.  The same article, written by Elayne Angel, was reprinted in the February 2005 issue of “Pain Magazine”. [3]

My suggestion to anyone who has heard this myth is to educate your friends and, if need be, your piercer.   By allowing misinformation to flow unchecked, we are doing a disservice to the body modification community. 

If your piercer is telling you these poorly researched myths, what <a href="http://www.bactine.com/bactinefaq.htm#usage">else</a> might they be wrong about?

[1] http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000966.htm

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer's_yeast

[3] http://www.safepiercing.org/PDFs/Point27.pdf