5 May
Tooth Loss and Periodontal Disease May Cause Cognitive Decline
Researchers at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine link tooth loss and periodontal disease to cognitive decline in a study released in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The study by Dr. Elizabeth Krall Kaye followed 597 men ages 28 to 70 for up to 32 years and looked for patterns in dental records to determine if periodontal disease and tooth loss predicted whether people did well or poorly on cognitive tests. She found that for each tooth lost per decade, the risk of doing poorly increased approximately eight to ten percent.
Dr. Kaye says inflammation is a possible cause, noting that other studies found higher levels of inflammation markers in people with Alzheimer’s. “Periodontal disease and caries are infectious diseases that introduce inflammatory proteins into the blood,” she says. “There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that inflammation raises your risk of cognitive decline and it could be that gum inflammation is one of the sources.”
(Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, May 2010, Vol. 58:4, pp. 713-718)
Posted by Dentists Orange on 05.05.10 at 12:56 pm
Bacteria from infected gums due to periodontal disease can travel to the heart, get attached to the arterial walls and form a clot, which may lead to a heart attack. This has been proven by a lot of researchers, which is why it is now important to consider oral health when someone has developed a heart problem.