Gum disease higher in heart attac...( Individuals who are having a heart ...)

Gum disease higher in heart attack patients

Individuals who are having a heart attack are more likely to have serious inflammation of gum tissue known as periodontal disease than those with no known heart disease, according to a study presented today at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2000.

Researchers, led by Efthymios Deliargyris, M.D., studied 38 men and women as they were admitted to the hospital with a first heart attack, comparing them to 38 people in the community with no coronary artery disease that would predispose them to such an event.

Eighty-five percent of the heart attack patients had periodontal disease, compared to 29 percent of the control group, says Deliargyris.

Researchers believe that high blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) may be a link between the two conditions. CRP is a marker of inflammation found to be elevated in heart attack patients. Higher levels of CRP are thought to predict heart attack recurrence. Deliargyris' team found that individuals with both periodontal disease and a first heart attack had higher blood levels of CRP than those without periodontal disease.

In this study, the CRP reading was related to severity of periodontal disease: the worse the periodontal disease, the higher the CRP level.

"The link so far is indirect, but it is enough to question whether treating periodontal disease might lower the risk of a recurrent heart attack in people who have a history of heart attack," says Sidney C. Smith, M.D., co-author of the study and a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The research may help provide possible new approaches to heart attack prevention, but further studies are still needed to understand the relationship between periodontal disease and heart disease, Smith says.

"It's not as simple as saying, 'If you don't floss your teeth you're going to have a heart attack,'" he cautions. "But it may be important t
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Contact: Maggie Francis or Carole Bullock
504-670-4000
American Heart Association
11-Nov-2000

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