In the past, several studies have suggested a relationship between periodontal disease and coronary heart disease, or CHD. There is, however, no convincing evidence of a causal association between periodontal disease and CHD, say researchers in the Sept. 20 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
University of Washington researchers analyzed 16 years of data from the First National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-Up Study. They evaluated 8,032 adults aged 25 to 74 years with no reported history of cardiovascular disease. In this group were 1,859 people with periodontitis, 2,421 with gingivitis and 3,752 with healthy periodontal tissues. Researchers compared a first occurrence of hospitalization or death from CHD with the patient’s periodontal history.
They found that 1,265 people had at least one CHD event, including a fatality, or at least one hospitalization with a diagnosis of CHD. After making adjustments for known cardiovascular risk factors, they concluded that gingivitis was not associated with CHD. Periodontitis, they said, was associated with a "nonsignificant" increased risk for CHD event.
They also concluded that periodontal inflammation markers associated with either peridontitis or gingivitis—swollen red papillae, bleeding gingivae or diffuse marginal inflammation—were not associated with an increased risk of developing CHD.
