Heated tobacco smoking may decrease gingival blood flow in humans

Abstract

Objective Earlier studies on crevicular fluid flow and gingival blood flow indicated increased gingival blood flow after smoking. In this study, we measured gingival blood flow following heated tobacco smoking. Methods We used a laser Doppler flowmeter (LDF) with different optic-fiber separations of 0.3 mm (LDF-0.3) and 0.7 mm (LDF-0.7). We have confirmed that the LDF-0.3 and difference between LDF-0.7 and LDF-0.3 (LDF-d) represented gingival blood flow in superficial fraction and deeper fraction, respectively. Eight heated-tobacco smokers consuming 4-25 daily volunteered and were asked not to smoke at least 5 h before the experiment. Gingival blood flow of upper papillary gingiva of frontal teeth was measured before and after smoking. Subjects smoked heated tobacco for about 5 min. Results Changes in LDF-0.3 and LDF-d after smoking were not statistically significant. However, LDF-0.7 significantly decreased after smoking (P<0.05). Five subjects showed a decrease in LDF-0.3 immediately after smoking, while smoking in 5 subjects caused a relative increase in LDF-d after smoking. Decreases in gingival blood flow in both fractions of gingiva after smoking were found only in one subject. Conclusions These results suggest that heated tobacco smoking may decrease gingival blood flow particularly in superficial layer of gingival.

Keywords

• gingival blood flow
• heated tobacco
• lasor doppler flowmetry