One of the specialists in the last discussion mentioned that they had looked up whether periodontal disease is linked to stroke and found that there does seem to be a correlation between the two. While reading this short article that showed data from 1,137 men I thought…. “Where is the data for women?”
So I decided to look up scholarly articles on gender differences between both sexes, and periodontal disease. I was not very lucky. I had my eye on an article called…
“Stroke. 2004 Sep;35(9):2029-35. Epub 2004 Jul 15.
Gender differences in the relationship between periodontal disease, tooth loss, and atherosclerosis.
Desvarieux M, Schwahn C, Völzke H, Demmer RT, Lüdemann J, Kessler C, Jacobs DR Jr, John U, Kocher T.
Source
Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, USA.”
But I was unable to find a pdf version I didn’t have to pay for, if anyone can find it please post a link on the site:)
Anyway I did come across something that I found interesting on this site (http://www.astdd.org/docs/Xiong2006periopregnancy.pdf) that relates to periodontal disease therefore inflammation in women. This review article States that there may be I link between periodontal disease and premature birth in pregnant women as well as preeclampsia and miscarriage. The periodontal pathogens seem to cause persistent inflammation, which is present throughout the disease. The study reviewed 25 studies and showed that 18 of those suggested an association. The studies where from all over the world the places ranged from USA, Chile, Turkey, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, and some others.
I had a hard time finding more articles for this as well. However, I found a lot of articles relating stress and periodontal disease. These articles cite numerous studies that show that cortisol released during stress lead to more destruction of gums. A reason for this is mentioned as the increase of bad habits during stressful times, such as bad diet, or more smoking.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.joponline.org/doi/abs/10.1902/jop.2007.060225
http://www.perio.org/consumer/stress07.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11381953
After reading these articles, I decided to check how gender effects stress. Many articles show that men react worse to stress than women do! This is because women have better coping mechanisms. One way is that women secrete oxytocin during stress which inhibit effects of cortisol, giving a more relaxing effect. Men also secrete oxytocin, bet testosterone levels apparently inhibit the effects. So, that refutes the angle that I was trying to find, which was a correlation of high stress levels in women being the reason for periodontal disease, which would then lead to stroke. I still think human stress reaction mechanisms are learned more from environment, but here is yet another angle to look at stroke.
http://www.webmd.com/balance/stress-management/features/stress-gender
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5304600
As a UA student you have access to the vast majority of scientific papers. To access the paper you were interested in, go to the UA Library website (library.arizona.edu) and, under the "Search and find" drop-down, select "Articles and Databases." From here, select PubMed after logging in (if you're not already logged in). If you type in the article you were interested in, entitled "Gender differences in the relationship between periodontal disease, tooth loss, and atherosclerosis," you will immediately find it and have free access to the PDF.
ReplyDeleteMain findings of the paper:
1)Subclinical atherosclerosis is related to tooth loss and long-term periodontitis in men but not women.
2) A ~10% difference in carotid artery plaque prevalence was observed between the highest and the lowest tertiles of tooth loss and long-term periodontitis in men and not women.
3) Analogous patterns were found for intima-media thickness, with the most evidence gender differences observed for samples under 59 years old.
Citations:
Desvarieux M, Schwahn C, Volzke H, et al. Gender differences in the relationship between periodontal disease, tooth loss, and atherosclerosis. Stroke 2004;35:2029-35.
Great post, Jackie! I find periodontal disease extremely interesting. I was excited to see you posted Dr. Xu Xiong's systemic review on periodontal disease and adverse pregnancy outcomes. I was fortunate to have Dr. Xiong as a professor in reproductive epidemiology at Tulane University. Dr. Xiong is doing some great work in periodontal disease among pregnant women and its association with adverse pregnancy outcomes, particularly preterm birth.
ReplyDeleteI am not as familiar with gender differences in periodontal disease, but I did find a recent paper by Ericsson et al. (2009) who conducted a cross-sectional study looking at periodontal health among Swedish adolescents. They found that the prevalence of plaque and gingivitis was higher in males compared to female adolescents, but there were no differences in socioeconomic groups, which I found interesting.
I also found another recent paper looking at periodontal disease only in African women by Yamori et al. (2011). Their goal was to investigate the association between periodontitis and/or tooth loss with hypertension. They found a significant correlation between periodontitis severity and increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure. They also found low-potassium intake in the diet mostly accompanied by low dietary fiber intake to increase blood pressure as well as periodontal inflammation.
To find the most recent papers on a particular topic, I use PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
Citations:
Ericsson, J.S., Abrahamsson, K.H., Ostberg, A.L., Hellstrom, M.K., Jonsson, K., Wennstrom, J.L. (2009). Periodontal health status in Swedish adolescents: an epidemiological, cross-sectional study. Swed Dent J, 33(3), 131-9.
Yamori, M., Njelekela, M., Mtabaji, J., Yamori, Y., Bessho, K. (2011). Hypertension, periodontal disease, and potassium intake in nonsmoking, nondrinker African women on no medication. International Journal of Hypertension, 1-5.
From reading different articles on periodontal diseases I think it is definately an area that should be looked into. Regarding birth and periodontal disease I found an article (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa062249#t=articleDiscussion) which treated women by scaling and root planing as well as monthly tooth polishing 21 weeks prior to gestation. THey found that treatment did safely improve the patients condition of periodontal disease but did not find a significant improvement in pre term birth rates, low birth weights, fetal growth restriction, or preeclampsia.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to discuss another article from the New England Journal of Medicine but could not find it. But the general idea was that periodontal disease was linked to many diseases such as diabetes and atherosclerosis and they found that it may be attributed to constant release of bacteria from the mouth into the blood stream and leading to an immune response that caused inflammation. They also found that periodontal disease in conjunction with something else (don't remember what) showed to increase inflammation than either alone. Perhaps the mechanisms for which periodontal disease may contribute to inflammation would open some windows to treating more diseases.