Periodontal Infection and Cardiovascular Diseases: Vinculum

Abstract

In recent years, improved diagnostic tools have broadened the concept of disease therapeutics to encompass and cater all possible etiologies to a particular disease. Cardiovascular diseases are one of the most prevalent disorders in both developing and developed countries. Hence, it is the need of the hour to develop efficient and targeted treatment protocols for them. Holistic management of any disorder is possible only when we are clear with the grass-root level origin and cause of a particular disease. Earlier concepts of pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular events like acute coronary artery syndromes had lipid centric view of etiology. However, in recent years, there has been a shift towards importance of inflammatory processes in the body to be responsible for the disease. Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease with prime bacterial etiology that leads to destruction of supporting structures of teeth. Present is a brief review of the possible mechanisms by which periopathogens can elicit cardiovascular risk and how treatment of periodontal infections can improve systemic health.

Keywords

• Atherosclerosis
• cardiovascular diseases
• oral microbiota
• periodontitis