Posted on 02/08/2005 10:53:03 AM PST by FlyLow
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- A study published this month in the current issue of "Circulation" shows a strong correlation between dental hygiene and heart health. Older adults who have high concentrations of four periodontal-disease-causing bacteria inhabiting their mouths also tend to have thicker carotid arteries, a strong predictor of stroke and heart attack.
According to information released by the Department of Health and Human Services, the study shows a direct association between cardiovascular disease and the bacteria that cause periodontal disease or inflammation of the gums, a condition that affects some 200 million Americans.
The researchers say the data do not show proof that the bacteria cause cardiovascular disease, directly or indirectly.
"What was interesting to us was the specificity of the association," said Moise Desvarieux, M.D., Ph.D., the study's lead author and an infectious disease epidemiologist at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the University of Minnesota.
"These same four bacteria were there, they were always there in the analysis, and the relationship seems to be pretty much, with one exception, limited to them," Desvarieux continued.
Desvarieux stressed that evaluation of the two conditions occurred at the same point in the lives of those studied making it impossible to ascertain at this point "which comes first, the periodontal disease or thickening of the carotid artery."
(Excerpt) Read more at gopusa.com ...
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