How does this case study: Sarah’s science fair experiment focused on whether spi

Question

How does this case study:

Sarah’s science fair experiment focused on whether spices in the diet influenced the microbial flora (or microbiota) of the skin. She had heard that garlic supposedly had health benefits and knew that it changed skin odor – did it also change the skin ecosystem? She enlisted the help of her science class and a large group of friends to be test subjects. All were asked to refrain from eating foods with garlic for a week. Then cultures were taken from their skin in various regions of their bodies. With this background information in hand, Sarah encouraged half the group (the test subjects) to eat as much garlic as they could over the next week. The other half of the group comprised the control subjects. At the conclusion of the test period, this organism was isolated from the axillary (armpit) regions of both control and test subjects.

lead to a respiratory disease? This is the question I need answered...

Indicate exactly where within the respiratory system the organism was causing the problems associated with the disease described in the Case study.

The organism is Rothia mucilaginosa and I know it's part of the normal flora of the respiratory tract, but I don't see an association with this case study.

Explanation / Answer

Since garlic is an immuno modulator it reduces the bacterial infection by stimulating the host immune system. In this case it is an opportunistic pathogen, hence it is an organism which is well adapted in the human environment. Hence the host immune surveillance system does not recognize it as an pathogen. Hence there was no change in the control and test subjects in the case study.

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