Having poor oral health is associated with coronary heart disease, according to an article in the Feb. 16 advance online publication of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers evaluated 256 Finnish cardiac patients and 250 Finnish noncardiac patients with similar demographic characteristics for five oral diseases—pericoronitis, gingivitis, missing teeth, root remnants and dental caries—to create the asymptotic dental score for determining cardiac risk.
They then used a mathematical model to determine each oral disease’s association with coronary heart disease, select the disease that had the most significant associations, and score the strengths of each disease’s contributions and weigh them to determine how much of a collective impact they had on coronary heart disease.
Among the five oral diseases, researchers found that the strongest predictor of coronary disease was pericoronitis, followed by root remnants, gingivitis, dental caries and missing teeth.
Researchers also found that a poor oral health diagnosis was a stronger predictor of heart disease than were other markers, such as high levels of the clotting factor fibrinogen, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or high triglycerides.
According to lead author Dr. Sok-Ja Janket, Boston University School of Dental Medicine and Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, this study suggests oral disease and coronary heart disease are linked, but it does not show whether one causes the other. She suggested that dentists who have patients with poor oral health should consider encouraging them to undergo cardiac examinations, even if they do not have symptoms of heart disease.
