Routine Dental Visits Help Slash Cardiovascular Disease

Previous studies have shown a relationship between oral inflammatory processes and cardiovascular risk factors, suggesting that dental care may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Timothy Brown, from University of California/Berkeley School of Public Health (California, USA), and colleagues analyzed data collected from nearly 7,000 men and women, ages 44 to 88 years, enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study, comparing those who visited the dentist during the previous two years with those who did not. Employing statistical analytics to assess for causality, the researchers found that for women, general dental care leads to fewer heart attacks, strokes, and other adverse cardiovascular outcomes in a causal way, with “women who receive dental care [reducing] their risk of future [cardiovascular disease] events by at least one-third.”