Researchers from the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland recently reported that people who cure their gum disease can decreased their arthritic pain if they surrfer from rheumatoid arthritis.
“It was exciting to find that if we eliminated the infection and inflammation in the gums, then patients with a severe kind of active rheumatoid arthritis reported improvement on the signs and symptoms of that disease,” said Nabil Bissada, D.D.S.
According to Ali Askari, M.D., chair of the department of rheumatology at University Hospitals, “From way back, rheumatologists and other clinicians have been perplexed by the myth that gum disease may have a big role in causing systematic disease.”
Askari and Bissada are part of a team of researchers that studied 40 patients with periodontal disease and a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis.
The study results should prompt rheumatologists to encourage their patients to be aware of the link between periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis, says Askari.
Bissada notes that gum disease tends to be prevalent in rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Both inflammatory diseases share similarities in the progression of the disease over time. In both diseases, the soft and hard tissues are destroyed from inflammation caused by toxins from bacterial infection.
“Again we are seeing another link where good oral health improves the overall health of an individual,” says Bissada.
Adapted from materials provided by Case Western Reserve University.