BIRMINGHAM, England: Researchers at the University of Birmingham recently led a study that showed an increased risk of mental ill-health and heart problems in patients if they had a history of periodontal (gum) disease.
Experts held a study on 64,379 patients whose general practitioners had recorded their history of periodontal disease, including gingivitis and periodontitis. Among them, 60,995 had gingivitis, and 3,384 had periodontitis. Experts compared their record to 251,161 patients who had no record of periodontal disease.
The average age of the patients included in the study was 44 years, 43 per cent were male, and 30 per cent were smokers.
The researchers examined the data to rule out the relationship of periodontal disease with cardiovascular disease (e.g., heart failure, vascular dementia, stroke), cardiometabolic disorders (e.g., high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes), mental ill-health (e.g., depression, anxiety and severe mental illness) and autoimmune conditions (e.g., arthritis, Type 1 diabetes, psoriasis).
The team discovered those patients with a recorded history of periodontal disease at the study's beginning were more likely to be diagnosed with one of these additional conditions over an average of three years, compared to those without periodontal disease at the beginning of the research. The risk of developing mental ill-health was increased by 37 per cent, autoimmune disease 33 per cent; cardiovascular disease risk was raised by 18 per cent and cardiometabolic disorder by 7 per cent.
The research 'Burden of chronic diseases associated with periodontal diseases: a retrospective cohort study using UK primary care data' has recently been published in BMJ Open.