Association between Periodontitis and Heart Disease: A Literature Review

Background: Heart disease is a multi factorial disease that arises from both; genetic and environmental factors. Genetic factors include hypertension, diabetes, platelet aggregations, and cholesterol. Environmental factors include imbalanced diet, a sedentary lifestyle, stress life, smoking, infections, and the intake of non-steroid anti-inflammatory medications. Heart disease death rates are approximately 30% of total deaths. Periodontal disease, a progressive inflammation; leads to damage dental tissue that surrounds teeth due to bacterial infections that release toxins and cause inflammatory reaction. Poor oral hygiene is the main cause of periodontitis. Therefore, oral infections due to poor oral hygiene might increase systemic inflammation. Scientists have hypothesized that the connection between two diseases is due to the same bacteria. Bacteria which founded in infected periodontal tissue around teeth are causing inflammation, so during normal chewing or brushing, bacteria can enter the bloodstream and move to other parts of the circulatory system, contributing to the formation of heart disease. This literature review was conducted to examine the research evidence for an association between periodontal disease and risk of heart disease.

Method and Results: A literature review of Pub Med abstracts was undertaken. Identified studies were reported in the period (1993- 2017) determining the evidence for periodontitis and its association with increasing risk of heart disease and some pathologic pathways.

Conclusion: Many studies focused on the role of oral infections and periodontal infection in incidence of atherosclerotic. In addition, these studies determined that periodontal disease is a risk factor for heart disease. Though, it requires more considerable future studies to prove the cause-and-effect relationship between periodontal disease and heart disease.