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| |  DG Dispatch - AAN: Dental Hygiene Linked To Stroke Risk By Cameron Johnston Special to DG News TORONTO, ON -- April 21, 1999 -- Poor dental hygiene might increase a person’s risk for stroke, researchers at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons report at the American Academy of Neurology meeting being held in Toronto. Based on examinations of 62 people with peridontal disease, Dr. Mitchell Elkind, an assistant professor of neurology reports that subjects with the greatest amounts of peridontal disease had substantially thicker walls on their carotid arteries than subjects with less peridontal disease and, therefore, might be at greater risk for stroke. Peridontal disease is a condition in which the gum pulls away from the teeth, eventually allowing bacteria to form between the gum-line and the teeth. Among the 62 subjects, none of whom had suffered strokes, the 31 with the lowest amount of peridontal disease had mean carotid artery wall thickness of 0.74 mm, whereas those who had the highest amounts of peridontal disease had mean arterial wall thickness of 1.12 mm. Dr. Elkind said peridontal disease is a chronic low-grade infection that results in toxins being released into the blood stream. These toxins could lead to a cascade of events that cause thickening of the carotid artery walls. Bacterial infections have recently been associated with increases in the risk of atherosclerosis as well as Alzheimer’s disease, and the same mechanisms might play a role in people with gum disease developing carotid stenosis and, therefore, being at increased risk of stroke. While the Columbia study seems to suggest that better dental hygiene might reduce the risk of stroke, the researcher cautioned that the people involved in this study had other risk factors too, such as smoking, hypertension and diabetes.
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