Periodontal Disease and Overall Health: A Clinician’s Guide

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      Harrison
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        What an amazing reference this online book is for people wanting to “brush up” on the connection between peridontal infections and systemic health problems! See the documents here:

        Introduction:

        Periodontal Disease and Overall Health: A Clinician's Guide

        320 page PDF:

        http://www.colgateprofessional.com/LeadershipUS/ProfessionalEducation/Articles/Resources/pdf/OSCD.pdf

        An excerpt from the first article link:

        “…For centuries, the role of oral infection and inflammation in contributing to diseases elsewhere in the body has been studied and reported. Going back to ancient times in Greece, we learn that Hippocrates treated two patients suffering from joint pain by removal of teeth. Clearly, this was an early example of oral disease being associated with afflictions elsewhere in the body. Then, moving forward in time from 1912 to around 1950, the era of “focal infection” dominated our thinking. Reports by individuals such as WD Miller, William Hunter, and Frank Billings noted that in their opinion many of the diseases of humans could be traced to specific foci of infection elsewhere in the body, such as the teeth and gums, the tonsils, or the sinuses. While these observations were not supported by sound scientific evidence, and in fact led to largely incorrect practices, they nonetheless brought attention to the effect of the mouth on the rest of the body.

        Then in 1989, with a series of intriguing reports from Finland, the current interest in the role of oral health and disease on contributing to general health and systemic conditions was launched. Kimmo Mattila and his coworkers reported that individuals presenting to the emergency room with a myocardial infarction were overwhelmingly likely to have periodontal disease. Might periodontal disease be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease? Since then, a phenomenal body of work has been directed at understanding how periodontal disease might affect distant sites and organs, and thus have an effect on overall health….”

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