Brush after every meal. Floss daily. See your dental professional regularly. These instructions make sense coming from your dentist to help you sustain your oral health. But now not only dentists, but also many physicians are stressing the importance of maintaining oral health in an effort to keep the rest of the body healthy. Research has long suggested an association between gum disease and other health issues—including heart disease, stroke and diabetes—but now scientists are beginning to shift their focus to understanding why these connections exist. An emerging theory, and one gaining support from researchers worldwide, is that inflammation may link the mouth to the body.
Inflammation is the body’s instinctive reaction to fight off infection, guard against injury or shield against irritation. Inflammation is often characterized by swelling, redness, heat and pain around the affected area. While inflammation initially intends to heal the body, over time, chronic inflammation can lead to dysfunction of the infected tissues, and therefore more severe health complications.
Is your head where your heart is? It may be now. A strong connection between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been suggested in recent clinical studies. As many as 75 percent of adults in the United States have been affected by periodontal disease and an estimated 80.7 million adults (1 out of every 3) have been a victim of CVD in 2006 according to the American Heart Association. From the 80.7 million adults in the United States, 38.2 million are less than 60 years of age, which is almost 50 percent. According to Marvin J. Slepian, MD, and Neil R. Gottehrer, DDS, who is lead a discussion titled "Oral Body Inflammation Connection" during the 57th Annual Meeting of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), these findings strengthen their belief that oral infections contribute to CVD morbidity and connection of chronic infections and CVD. The AGD's Annual Meeting is take place in Baltimore, MD, July 8-12, 2009.
The discussion will be one of the first discussions held at the AGD's annual meeting that integrates both dentistry and medicine because the disease is common to both health management groups. "It is critical for all dentists and physicians to collaborate in helping patients reduce inflammation, which can become a target factor for cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Slepian. Both Drs. Slepian and Gottehrer, with the help of an expert doctoral panel that will include, Loren M. Golub, DMD, MSc, MD (honorary); Jack Martin, MD; Mel Blumenthal, MD; Jerry Mailis, MD; Daniel Fine, DMD; Dean Mersky, DDS; and Stephen Gale, PhD, discusses the correlation between periodontal disease and CVD. Information presented during this session will provide dentists with hands-on knowledge regarding how to communicate with physicians in order to collaborate and create more proactive management periodontal disease treatment plans (including non-surgical options), which can then improve periodontal and associated physical health by reducing CVD.
"This is a landmark course being presented and I am honored to be holding the discussion with my colleague, Dr. Slepian," says Dr. Gottehrer. "We hope to provide groundbreaking and useful information to attendees to help them improve the overall health of their patients and to build an increased awareness about the connection between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease that many, if not most, patients are unaware of."
