Heart of the Matter

Associations between tooth loss and mortality patterns in the Glasgow Alumni Cohort

“…In contrast, although an interaction with the continuous measure was not significant (p = 0.61), an increased HR between the number of missing teeth (as a categorical variable) and stroke mortality (table 3) was observed in former students who were examined when aged 24-30 years, whereas such an association was not present among those examined at [16][17][18][19] To test whether the associations between tooth loss and cause-specific mortality might be mediated by residual confounding of smoking, the statistical analyses were also performed separately in non-smokers and smokers. For CVD, the HR for missing teeth as a continuous variable was 1.03 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.06) in non-smokers and 0.99 (95% CI 0.96 to 1.02) in smokers, and the HR of missing teeth >9 was 1.43 (95% CI 0.98 to 2.09) in non-smokers and 1.27 (95% CI 0.86 to 1.87) in smokers.…”

“…As oral infection in the pathogenesis of systemic diseases has been postulated to be at a very early stage of the disease processes, 19 we investigated an interaction between the age at examination and the number of missing teeth for each of the mortality outcomes by performing subgroup analyses by category of age at examination: 16-19, 20-23 and 24-30 years. All statistical analyses were performed using Stata version 9.1 (StataCorp, Texas, USA).…”

The association of tooth loss with all-cause and circulatory mortality. Is there a benefit of replaced teeth? A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…In addition, oral infection in the pathogenesis of coronary heart disease has been postulated to be involved at a very early stage of the disease [77]. As one cannot be sure about the true induction period, statistical methods may be used to estimate the most appropriate induction period [19].…”

Periodontitis–systemic disease associations in the presence of smoking – causal or coincidental?

“…If a complete, definitive and irreversible elimination of dental infection through complete tooth removal does not lower CHD risk, why would an incomplete, imperfect and reversible decreasing of the bacterial load by means of periodontal treatments decrease CHD risk? Some have offered the explanation that the risk, once established, is not reversible and therefore primary periodontitis prevention trials, rather than secondary prevention, should be initiated (16). An alternative explanation of this evidence is that, unlike smoking cessation, dental infection elimination has no impact on CHD incidence (13).…”