Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland reported that patients reduced arthritic pain and the number of swollen joints after treating their dental problems.
“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.” Stated Dr. Nabil Bissada, chair of the school’s Department of Periodontics.
This study was not the first to link gum disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatologists and other clinicians have studied the how gum disease may lead to systematic disease. Dr. Ali Askari, chair of the department of rheumatology at University Hospitals, states that historically, arthritic patients felt better when teeth were pulled or received antibiotics used to treat periodontal disease.
Askari and Bissada worked together, studying 40 patients with moderate to severe periodontal disease and severe rheumatoid arthritis. These inflammatory diseases share similarities in the progression of the disease over time. In both diseases, inflammation caused by toxins from bacterial infection destroys hard and soft tissue. One common toxin revealed in the study, called, tumor necrosis factor-alpha , can initiate new infections or aggravate sites where inflammation already exists. (more…)