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Dental Health: Brush and Floss (to Save Your Heart, of
Course)
Published in New York Times January 10, 2006
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
New York Times
The more teeth people have lost, the greater their risk of
cardiovascular problems, a new study suggests.
Researchers analyzed data from a nationwide telephone survey
of health risk factors conducted by state health agencies
with the help of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of 41,891 adults ages 40 to 79 interviewed from 1999 to 2002,
34.6 percent had all their teeth, 35.3 percent had 1 to 5
missing and 18.8 percent had 6 to 31 missing. The remaining
11.4 percent had no teeth at all. The results appear in the
December issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
People with fewer teeth were more likely to smoke, more likely
to be overweight and more likely to be older. But even after
adjusting for these factors and others, the researchers found
that compared with people who had all their teeth, those with
1 to 6 missing (not counting teeth lost to injury or orthodontics)
were 1.2 times as likely to have cardiovascular illness. Those
with 6 to 31 missing were 1.64 times as likely, and those
with no teeth were 1.87 times as likely.
"Tooth loss in adults is often caused by a silent, chronic
disease of the tissue surrounding the teeth, called periodontal
disease," said Paul I. Eke, an epidemiologist at the
C.D.C. and a co-author of the paper, "and this disease
may have other implications that are not good for your health."
The authors stress that their results do not prove that tooth
loss causes heart disease, only that they tend to occur together.
Still, they recommend that health counseling include not only
the promotion of known heart-healthy behaviors, but of good
oral health as well.
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