A link between severity of periodontal disease and mortality in patients with diabetes has been found, reported researchers in an article in the January 2005 issue of Diabetes Care.
A study of 628 Pima Indians aged 35 years and older examined the effect of periodontal disease on mortality—cardiovascular and renal mortality, in particular—in patients with type 2 diabetes. Researchers used panoramic radiographs and examinations to rate the severity of periodontal disease in each subject, classified as none, mild, moderate or severe. Nearly 60 percent of the subjects had severe periodontal disease.
During a median follow-up of 11 years, 204 of the subjects died. Adjusting for age and sex, the death rates for all natural causes expressed as the "number of deaths per 1,000 person-years" were 3.7 for no or mild periodontal disease, 19.6 for moderate periodontal disease and 28.4 for severe periodontal disease.
Researchers found that periodontal disease was a positive predictor for deaths from ischemic heart disease and diabetic nephropathy. After adjusting for factors such as duration of diabetes, hypertension and tobacco use, they noted that "subjects with severe periodontal disease had 3.2 times the risk of cardiorenal mortality" as did subjects in the no or mild-to-moderate periodontal disease groups combined.
"Periodontal disease is a strong predictor of mortality from ischemic heart disease and diabetic nephropathy in Pima Indians with type 2 diabetes," the researchers wrote. "The effect of periodontal disease is in addition to the effects of traditional risk factors for these diseases."
