Poor Dental Health Linked To Loss Of Brain Function

Mon, 16 Nov 2009

A team of researchers in the US have discovered that gum disease can affect the brain in elderly people.

According to the team, led by Dr James Noble at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, gum disease can cause inflammation throughout the body, which is a risk factor for loss of mental function.

A study based on more than 2,350 adults aged 60 and older revealed that those with the highest levels of the gum disease-causing pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis were nearly three times more likely to struggle with verbal memory tests.

It also discovered that adults with the highest levels of this pathogen were twice as likely to fail on both delayed verbal recall and subtraction tests.

"Despite the association of periodontitis with stroke and shared risk factors between stroke and dementia, to our knowledge, no epidemiological studies have investigated periodontitis relative to cognition," the research team said.

"Although results presented here are preliminary and inconclusive, a growing body of evidence supports exploration of a possible association between poor dental health and incident dementia ."

They added that their findings justified "further exploration of relationships between oral health and cognition".
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