Recent research has shown how heart health and oral health are
closely related, but even newer research in this field has discovered
that professional teeth cleanings will lower the risk of heart disease.
Some of the research, conducted in Taiwan, found that patients who had
professional cleanings had a reduced risk of heart attack and stroke.
Simultaneously another study was conducted in Sweden which found that
what type of gum disease patients have may help predict their level of
risk for heart diseases like heart attack, stroke and heart failure.
Together these two studies can offer dentists a new lens into the world
of heart disease and oral health.
In the Taiwan report the
researchers, Emily Zu-Yin Chen and Hsin-Bang Leu who are doctors at the
cardiology department of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, looked at
information gathered from fifty one thousand adults all over Taiwan who
had received a scaling treatment from their dentist or dental
hygienist. They also looked at a control group of patients who had never
had their teeth cleaned professionally before.
All of the
participants in the study had no history of stroke or heart attack. The
researchers followed up on the heart health of the patients for an
average of seven years after treatment. The researchers data showed
that those who had had the professional scaling treatment were twenty
four percent less likely to experience a heart attack than the group
without the scaling treatment. The scaling group also presented a
thirteen percent lower risk of stroke. They found the results in both
patients who had their teeth cleaned at least twice in a period of two
years as well as in patients who had their teeth cleaned less often.
Dr.
Chen told the press that “Protection from heart disease and stroke was
more pronounced in participants who got tooth scaling at least once a
year.”
Chens theory as to why the results showed this pattern was
that it might be that scaling removes the bacteria in the mouth that
cause inflammation, and it is those same bacteria that when released
into the blood stream can cause heart disease and strokes.
The
other study, conducted both at the Centre for Research and Development
of the County Council of Gävleborg as well as Uppsala Academic Hospital
by Dr. Anders Holmlund of Gävleborg, the senior consultant of
Specialized Dentistry and Dr. Lars of the Department of Acute Medicine
at Uppsala. Drs. Holmlund and Lars examined almost eight thousand
participants who had periodontal or gum disease in their study.
The
findings were that different types of gum disease are pre-determinants
for which type of heart disease the patients were most susceptible to.
Some of the results that the researchers found were that those who had
the most teeth were at less risk of heart disease, where those with less
than twenty one teeth had a sixty nine persent higher risk of heart
attack. The patients who had fewer teeth also presented more than double
risk of congestive heart failure than patients who had the most teeth.
The
participants in the study with the highest rates of infection presented
a fifty three percent higher risk of heart attack than those who had
the least amount of infection. Those with the highest amounts of
bleeding in the gums presented just over two times the risk of a stroke
as those who had the least amount of gum bleeding.
The study concluded that gum disease could potentially be a predictor of heart disease risks. “Markers of periodontal disease predict future common cardiovascular
events in different ways, suggesting that they are risk indicators for
different cardiovascular disorders
, said Homlund and Lars.