Gum disease - the sniper
Heart attack, pneumonia, diabetes and cancer: more and more studies show that chronic gum disease increases the risk of life-shortening diseases... Find out if you are also threatened and how to defend yourself ...
Medical science generally agrees that low-threshold, chronic inflammatory conditions in the whole body are jointly responsible for heart and circulatory diseases, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, arthritis and other degenerative illnesses.
In the course of this, the organism is in an ongoing chronic inflammation. A contributory cause are certain pathogenic bacteria in the oral cavity, which -in case of lacking oral hygiene- multiply at the teeth and in the gingival pockets unchecked. With patients who suffer from periodontitis, a chronic low-threshold inflammation in the blood -traceable through an increased level of the C-reactive protein- is a classic inflammation marker. Clinical studies of the Columbia University, USA, showed a significant relation between periodontitis and heart attack and stroke. In fact, periodontitis germs were found in the atherosclerotic plaque. They had aged in the endothelium, the inner lining of the arteries, and in the end, they caused atherosclerosis. Early this year, the American Dental Association (ADA) reported a case in which the fatal infection of the brain with a twelve-year-old boy was ascribed to an untreated gum disease.
Periodontitis increases the risk of diabetes type 2
More and more people suffer from diabetes mellitus type 2. Mainly responsible for this are obesity and lack of exercise. However, also the chronic periodontitis appears to increase the risk for diabetes type 2 and vice versa.
Clinical studies showed that periodontitis was frequently found with badly controlled diabetes patients. If the periodontitis was successfully treated, the blood levels improved. A clinical study with diabetes type 2 patients showed that peiodontitis doubled their risk of dying of a heart or kidney disease.
Risk of pneumonia
Periodontitis can trigger a certain kind of pneumonia. This especially applies to elderly people with a bad health. They breathe in periodontitis germs, which spread out in the lungs where they cause and inflammation.
In a Japanese clinical study, only one of the 98 elderly test persons who were frequently treated by a dental hygienist fell ill with this type of pneumonia, whereas in the control group without dental hygiene program that number was 92. Low birth weight
In an ongoing clinical study, periodontitis with the mother increased the risk for the child to be born with a low birth weight. Doctors monitor this correlation for decennia. Probably the presence of inflammation molecules, which increasingly circulate in the blood in the case of periodontitis, affects the maturation of the foetus.