Periodontal disease is linked with higher salivary concentrations of IL‐1β and IL‐8 (reviewed by Jaedicke, Preshaw, & Taylor, 2016), yet in this study, it was unclear whether inflammatory profiles were driven by differences in the respective microbial communities, with only weak associations detected between microbial relative abundances and cytokine concentrations. This evidence concerns the gene CXCL8 and periodontal disorder.