Experts are highlighting links between gum disease and diabetes Each illness works on the other to worsen the overall health of patients Getting your gums back into health might help cut risks for diabetes THURSDAY, Nov. 14, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Periodontal (gum) disease and diabetes are locked in a grim partnership aimed at undermining your health, experts warn. “Recent research has shown that diabetes is not only a major risk factor for periodontitis but that the relationship between the two conditions is bidirectional, meaning they both influence and exacerbate one another,” said Dr.
Anton Sculean , chair of periodontology at hte University of Berne in Switzerland. The relationship might even become deadly over time: Moderate or severe cases of gum disease have long been linked to a heightened odds for death from heart disease or death from any cause, said Sculean. He's also chairman of EuroPerio11, the annual meeting of the European Federation of Periodontology (EFP).
Diabetes is now thought to affect more than 800 million people worldwide, and it occurs when the body either fails to produce enough insulin (the hormone that regulates blood sugar) or the body's cells become less sensitive to the hormone. Besides its many other complications, diabetes triples the odds for severe gum disease, the EFP said in a news release. In fact, as a diabetic person's loses control of blood sugar levels, gum disease severity rises.
Why is that so? As Sculean and colleagues explai.