South Korea: A recent study published in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications has shown periodontitis presence to be related to an increased risk of microvascular complications in patients with diabetes.
Periodontitis, a common chronic inflammatory disease, is a serious gum infection that can cause tooth loss and other severe health complications. It is one of the oral complications of diabetes. Diabetes-related microvascular complications and periodontitis are also closely associated with systemic inflammation. However, not much research has been done on factors related to diabetes microvascular complications.
Against the above background, Tae-Jin Song, Department of Neurology, Seoul Hospital, Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea, and colleagues hypothesized that periodontitis and oral hygiene markers might raise the risk of microvascular complications in diabetes mellitus (DM)
The study enrolled 11,353 diabetes participants who did not have prior microvascular complications who received complete oral health checkups in the National Health Insurance Service-National Health Screening Cohort in 2003–2004. The primary outcome was the first development of diabetes-related microvascular complications, including neuropathy, nephropathy, and retinopathy.
The age of all participants was 55.27 ± 9.46 years, and 68.99% participants were male.
Following were the study's key findings:
Periodontitis was noted in 8.37%.
During the 7.03 ± 4.30 year of the mean follow-up period, 7227 patients experienced diabetes-related microvascular complications (2645 with nephropathy, 2513 with neuropathy, 2069 with retinopathy).
Multivariable Cox regression analyses showed that periodontitis was an independent risk factor for diabetes-related microvascular complications (adjusted hazard ratio (HR):1.13).
In the secondary analysis for individual microvascular complications, periodontitis was an independent risk factor for retinopathy (adjusted HR: 1.21).
"Our findings showed that periodontitis is associated with an increased risk of microvascular complications in diabetes patients," the authors wrote.
Reference:
The study titled, "Association of periodontitis with microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus: A nationwide cohort study," was published in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdiacomp.2021.108107