NYMC Faculty Publications

Periodontal Disease and Systemic Conditions: A Bidirectional Relationship

Author Type(s)

Faculty

Additional Author Affiliation

Touro College of Dental Medicine at NYMC

DOI

10.1007/s10266-006-0060-6

Journal Title

Odontology

First Page

10

Last Page

21

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2006

Department

Pharmacology

Abstract

For decades, physicians and dentists have paid close attention to their own respective fields, specializing in medicine pertaining to the body and the oral cavity, respectively. However, recent findings have strongly suggested that oral health may be indicative of systemic health. Currently, this gap between allopathic medicine and dental medicine is quickly closing, due to significant findings supporting the association between periodontal disease and systemic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and osteoporosis. Significant effort has brought numerous advances in revealing the etiological and pathological links between this chronic inflammatory dental disease and these other conditions. Therefore, there is reason to hope that the strong evidence from these studies may guide researchers towards greatly improved treatment of periodontal infection that would also ameliorate these systemic illnesses. Hence, researchers must continue not only to uncover more information about the correlations between periodontal and systemic diseases but also to focus on positive associations that may result from treating periodontal disease as a means of ameliorating systemic diseases.

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