By Reuters
Health
 |
| Good Dental Hygiene decreases risk of heart attack |
April 19,
2012 -- NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Older adults who get thorough dental
cleanings may be somewhat less likely to have a heart attack or stroke than
their peers who are less careful about oral hygiene, a new study suggests.
The study,
of nearly 22,000 Taiwanese adults age 50 and older, found that those who'd had
a professional tooth "scaling" in the past year were less likely to
suffer a heart attack or stroke over the next seven years. Tooth
scaling, sometimes called a deep cleaning, involves removing the
"plaques" that can build up on the teeth and deep in tooth pockets
within the gumline. Those plaques harbor bacteria that can lead to gum disease. The new
findings, reported in the American Journal of Medicine, do not prove that a
good dental cleaning will cut your risk of heart problems.
But the
study is in line with past research that has linked gum disease to an increased
risk of heart disease, said lead researcher Dr. Zu-Yin Chen, a cardiology
fellow at Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan. Since gum
disease is caused by bacterial infection, researchers suspect that it may
contribute to heart attacks or stroke by causing a chronic state of
inflammation in blood vessels.
And studies
have shown that treating gum disease can cut the levels of inflammatory
substances in the blood, Chen told Reuters Health in an email.
Still, no
one knows for sure whether a regular visit to your dentist can prevent a future
heart attack.
For the
study, Chen's team looked at insurance records for 21,876 adults age 50 and
older. Taiwan's national healthcare program pays for tooth scaling, whether a
person has severe gum disease or not.
About half
of the people in the study had had a tooth scaling in the past year, while the
rest had not. Over the next seven years, 1.6 percent of the tooth-scaling group
suffered a heart attack and 8.9 percent had a stroke. In the comparison group,
2.2 percent had a heart attack and 10 percent had a stroke.
The
researchers then weighed some other factors, like whether people had chronic
health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure or kidney disease. It
turned out that a deep tooth cleaning was linked to a 31 percent reduction in
the risk of a future heart attack, and a 15 percent dip in the odds of a
stroke.
People who
got deep cleanings more than once every two years during the follow-up period
had even lower risks of cardiovascular "events." But the study also
had a number of limitations. An important one, Chen said, was that the
researchers had no information on people's smoking habits, weight, diet habits
or family history -- all prime factors influencing the risks of heart attack
and stroke. It's also impossible for the study to determine whether people who
get regular dental cleanings might also have a healthier lifestyle in other
ways.
For now,
the researchers recommended taking care of your oral health for the sake of
your oral health -- with the possibility of benefiting your heart health as
well. "Bad dental hygiene is detrimental to our health, so it's very
important to take care of your teeth," said Chen, who presented some of
his team's results last November at the American Heart Association meeting.
By Amy
Norton
Source:
http://bit.ly/IlKu8h American Journal of Medicine, online April 5, 2012.
Last Updated: 2012-04-19 10:00:08 -0400 (Reuters Health)
Chronic inflammation in teeth can be the risk factor for heart attack. To prevent chronic inflammation and inflammatory diseases we need to keep or teeth clean and healthy. We need to take some preventive methods for inflammatory diseases like gum disease. An experienced Silver Spring dentist told me that heart attack and stroke are directly linked to gum disease. Thanks again for posting such an informative blog.
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