If you do one thing this week . . . avoid cigarettes for your mouth bacteria

There’s a list as long as both your arms of reasons why smoking is bad for your health, and here’s another one: it could make your mouth a better home for potentially harmful microbes.

A recent study in the US compared samples from the mouths of 15 smokers and 15 people who never smoked as plaque was allowed to form.

And what they found suggests that smoking was associated with disease-causing bacteria.

“The smoker’s mouth kicks out the good bacteria, and the pathogens are called in,” said researcher Purnima Kumar from Ohio State University in a release. “So they’re allowed to proliferate much more quickly than they would in a non-smoking environment.”

The study was published in the journal Infection and Immunity.