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Home News Your Mouth Can Speak Volumes about Your Overall Health

Your Mouth Can Speak Volumes about Your Overall Health

Published: Thursday, April 23, 2009

Resident dentists and physicians at the UT Graduate School of Medicine, Knoxville, are identifying better ways to recognize signs in the oral cavity that may indicate their patients have problems in other areas of their bodies.

Dental professionals have long seen a correlation between the health of a patient’s gums and life-threatening conditions that later developed. Ten years ago, the American Academy of Periodontology began educating the public that a person’s periodontal, or gum, health could be an indicator of systemic disease, health problems that can affect organs and tissues or the body as a whole. Research studies suggest links between periodontal disease and risks for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, premature birth, respiratory disease and HIV. Studies about the effects of improved oral health on kidney disease are currently under way.

Associate Professor O. Lee Wilson, D.M.D., Director of the General Practice Residency Program in dentistry at the UT Graduate School of Medicine, says this new understanding places dentists on the front lines of disease detection. “Dentists have been able to see the impact of serious diseases, such as diabetes, on the condition of a patient’s gum health. But researchers examining how these signs in the mouth relate to the progress of diseases in the body have helped us understand that some of the first outward signs of disease may appear in the gums early in the disease cycle. This can mean earlier detection of health problems and preventive care for our patients. Equipped with this knowledge, our dentists consider the possible systemic side effects and refer patients directly to the appropriate medical expert.”

The link between gum disease and systemic disease is so strong that some health plan companies are promoting good dental hygiene by offering to cover additional preventive services for patients who have diabetes, are pregnant, who suffer from heart disease, or are considered high risk.

A free online gum-disease risk assessment designed by the American Academy of Periodontology is available at http://www.perio.org/consumer/4a.html.  

The University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville is part of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, the statewide academic health system. The school is home to more than 200 teaching physicians and researchers; more than 190 medical and dental resident physicians in 11 residency and 12 fellowship programs; and more than 180 volunteer faculty physicians and dentists. The school, together with clinical partner University Health System Inc., form the University of Tennessee Medical Center, the only academic medical center in the area. For more information about the UT Graduate School of Medicine, visit http://gsm.utmck.edu.