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Author Interviews, Dental Research, Exercise - Fitness / 27.09.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Sonia Julià-Sánchez, PhD Universitat de Barcelona MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Over the last few years, a growing interest has focused on the potential correlation between the stomatognathic system and the body balance. While this relationship is still a subject for debate, it is well known that sensory information contributes differently on the postural control regulation depending on the conditions of the surface area. Therefore, we hypothesized that dental occlusion may contribute differently on the body balance control depending on the stability condition (stable versus unstable) and that influence might be more evident in fatigue conditions due to reorganization of the sensory information sources. In the current study we aimed to determine whether: (i) dental occlusion influences body balance in stable and unstable surfaces, and (ii) the influence of dental occlusion on the balance control comes strongly into effect under fatigue conditions. Our results showed that dental occlusion influenced balance control, at unstable level, both at rest and fatigue condition. However, when measuring at stable level, the influence of dental occlusion only reached significance in fatigue condition. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Diabetes / 09.09.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: In-Seok Song, DDS, PhD Clinical Assistant Professor Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon Department of Dentistry, Korea University Anam Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Periodontitis is a well-known cause of various systemic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes. As for type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance is responsible for the low-grade systemic inflammation, which can deteriorate body function throughout pancreatic β-cell dysfunction and impaired fasting glucose. There are emerging evidences that insulin resistance is a cause of periodontal disease progression among Korean adults as well as other citizens including American, French, Finnish, and the British. In this study, we hypothesized that insulin resistance aggravates the severity of periodontitis. We investigated the associations between type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and severe periodontitis. The associations between severe periodontitis and insulin resistance in non-obese adults with normal body mass index (BMI) or waist circumference (WC) were also evaluated. We found that non-abdominal obese adults with insulin resistance were more likely to have severe periodontitis compared to metabolically healthy adults with normal waist circumference. Insulin resistance without abdominal obesity can be considered an independent risk factor of severe periodontitis. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Heart Disease / 10.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: John Liljestrand, DDS Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Diseases University of Helsinki MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: There is an increased amount of evidence supporting the hypothesis that oral inflammations increase the risk for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The association between marginal periodontitis, a common inflammatory disease in the tooth supporting tissues, and CVDs is well established. The link is thought to depend on transient but repeated bacteremia, endotoxemia and an increased systemic inflammatory burden. Apical periodontitis is a common manifestation of an endodontic infection, most often caused by dental caries. It is an inflammatory reaction surrounding the root tip of a tooth and it restrains the dental infection from spreading into the bone. Apical periodontitis is similar to marginal periodontitis regarding its microbial profile and ability to increase systemic inflammatory markers. Therefore, it is justified to suggest that apical periodontitis might also increase the risk for CVDs. There is only a minor amount of publications on this topic and further research is still needed.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Dental Research, Geriatrics, Kidney Disease / 05.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Danielle Mairead Maire Ni Chroinin, MB BCh BAO BMedSc MD MRCPI FRACP Staff Specialist in Geriatric Medicine Liverpool Hospital and Senior Conjoint Lecturer UNSW MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Oral disease may have a large impact on older persons’ health and wellbeing, causing pain, impairing speech, adversely affecting nutrition, contributing to systemic infection and harming self-esteem. However, this important issue may be neglected in the acute hospital setting. Our aim was to investigate oral health status and abnormalities in older patients admitted acutely to hospital, exploring the association with medical co-morbidities. We included all individuals aged 70 and older admitted to a geriatric service over 3 months (N=202), and evaluated oral health using a simple bedside tool the Oral Health Assessment Tool (OHAT). Overall, we found that poor oral health was not uncommon, and was associated with dementia and renal impairment. This association persisted even after adjustment for anticholinergic medication and oral pH, highlighting that patients with these conditions may be particularly vulnerable. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Infections / 05.08.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Stephanie S. Momeni, MS, MBA Doctoral Candidate, Department of Biology DART Trainee, Department of Pediatric Dentistry & IOHR UAB School of Dentistry Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0007 MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: This study was a small part of a large scale of S. mutans in a group of high-caries risk children and their household family members in Perry County, Alabama, USA. Overall dental caries is a dietary and infectious disease that we seek to understand better. We found only 34 rep-PCR genotypes for over 13,000 bacterial isolates from over 594 individual subjects. With so much commonality we wanted to determine if any conclusions could be made about transmission. The key findings are: • Children having multiple S. mutans genotypes were 2.3 times more likely to have dental caries. • Analysis for transmission performed from two perspectives (by child and by genotype) indicating 63% of children shared at least 1 genotype with their mother, but 72% of children had at least 1 genotype not shared with any household family members. • Child-to-child transmission of some genotypes is highly probable. • About 1/3 of isolates observed were transient, and may confound the search for strains associated with tooth decay. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Stroke / 20.07.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Yago Leira, DDS Pre-Doc researcher at Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and Department of Periodontology, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Periodontal disease is a chronic oral inflammatory disease caused by bacterial infection, which affects 20% to 50% of the adult population. Lacunar stroke, a type of cerebral small vessel disease, is responsible for almost 25% of the ischaemic strokes. It may be hypothesized that chronic periodontitis leads to a low-grade state of systemic inflammation altering endothelial function and blood vessels health, which could be related to the onset of atherosclerosis. Moreover, lacunar stroke could be linked with an inflammation process that can be associated with endothelial dysfunction. In the last decade, several observational studies have suggested an association between periodontal disease and ischaemic stroke. However, none of them have studied the relationship between chronic periodontitis and lacunar stroke independently of known vascular risk factors that both diseases may share (e.g., ageing, hypertension, diabetes mellitus or hypercholesterolemia). (more…)
Author Interviews, Cognitive Issues, Dental Research / 06.04.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Elham Emami, DDS, MSc, PhD Director , Oral Health and Rehabilitation Research Unit & Associate Professor Faculty of Dental Medicine & School of Public Health Université de Montréal Adjunct Professor McGill University MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Emami: Over the past 20 years, scientific evidence has shown that oral and general health are closely linked. Recently, studies have shown that there is also a link between the number of teeth an older person has and his/her cognitive status. We carried out a meta-analysis using the data from these latter studies. Our results indicate that, taking into account socioeconomic differences and other potential confounding variables, a person with less than 20 teeth has a 20% greater risk of having cognitive decline (HR= 1.26, 95% CI = 1.14 to 1.40) and dementia (HR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.04 to 1.43) than someone who has 20 or more teeth. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Esophageal, Infections / 02.03.2016

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Huizhi Wang Assistant Professor Department of Oral Immunology and Infectious Diseases University of Louisville School of Dentistry Louisville, KY  MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Wang: Esophageal cancer is the eighth most frequent tumor and sixth leading cause of cancer death worldwide, characterized by rapid development and poor prognosis, including high mortality. Whereas the majority of cases occur in Asia, particularly in central China, recent data suggest that the frequency of new cases is rising in Western Europe and the USA. Mounting evidence suggests a causal relationship between specific bacterial infections and the development of certain malignancies. However, the possible role of the keystone periodontal pathogen, Porphyromonas gingivalis, in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) was unknown before our study. We found P. gingivalis infects epithelium of cancerous tissues up to 61%, as compared with 12% of adjacent tissues and non-infected in normal esophageal mucosa. A similar distribution of lysine-specific gingipain, a catalytic endoprotease uniquely secreted by P. gingivalis, and P. gingivalis DNA was observed. Moreover, we found infection of P. gingivalis was positively associated with the multiple clinicopathologic characteristics, including differentiation status, metastasis, and overall survival rate.  (more…)
Author Interviews, Breast Cancer, Cancer Research, Dental Research, Smoking / 21.12.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jo Freudenheim, PhD UB Distinguished Professor and Interim Chair Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health School of Public Health and Health Professions University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Freudenheim: There have been a number of studies that have shown an association between periodontal disease and chronic diseases, particularly stroke and heart attacks. There is also some newer evidence that periodontal disease is associated with cancer, particularly cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. Ours is the first large prospective study of periodontal disease and breast cancer. This was part of a study of more than 70,000 postmenopausal women from throughout the United States, the Women’s Health Initiative. Women provided information about their health and other related factors and then those women were followed to see who developed certain diseases. We found that women who had been told that they had periodontal disease were more likely to develop breast cancer. In particular, women who were former smokers (quit within the last 20 years) and who had periodontal disease were at increased breast cancer risk. There was a similar increase in risk for current smokers with periodontal disease but it was not statistically significant. (There was a relatively small number of current smokers in the WHI study.) (more…)
Author Interviews, BMJ, Dental Research, Pediatrics, Smoking / 22.10.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Koji Kawakami, MD, PhD Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Research Management Graduate School of Medicine and Public Health Director, Science for Innovation Policy Unit, Center for Promotion of Interdisciplinary Education and Research Kyoto University Kyoto city Kyoto Japan Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Kawakami: The prevalence of caries in deciduous teeth in developed countries remains high, while established measures for caries prevention in young children is limited to sugar restriction, oral fluoride supplementation and fluoride varnish. In this study of 76920 children in Japan, exposure to tobacco smoke at 4 months of age, which was experienced by half of all children of that age, was associated with an increased risk of caries in deciduous teeth by approximately 2-fold. Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report? Dr. Kawakami: Our findings would support extending public health and clinical interventions to reduce secondhand smoke. For example, the chance of education on the harm of secondhand smoke would increase if dentists become aware of the caries risk due to secondhand smoke as well as tobacco smoking of their patients. (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research / 30.03.2015

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Philip Riley Cochrane Oral Health Group, School of Dentistry The University of Manchester Manchester, UK Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: As tooth decay is still so prevalent worldwide, despite being entirely preventable, it is worth assessing the evidence for other adjunctive ways for the public to help prevent the disease. Manufacturers of xylitol products commonly make the claim that this natural sweetener prevents tooth decay, and we felt that the public deserved to know if the best quality evidence backs up such claims. We found that there was a lack of evidence from randomised controlled trials (the best type of study design for testing the effects of interventions) to prove that xylitol products can prevent tooth decay. We found some low quality evidence suggesting that xylitol added to fluoride toothpaste may reduce tooth decay in children’s permanent teeth by 13% over a 3 year period when compared to fluoride toothpaste without xylitol. However, these findings should be interpreted with caution and may or may not be generalizable to other populations. There was insufficient evidence to conclude that xylitol in chewing gums, lozenges, candies/sweets, syrups and wipes can prevent tooth decay in children or adults (more…)
Author Interviews, Dental Research, Heart Disease / 19.01.2015

Dr. Francisco Mesa Department of Periodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Granada, Spain MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr. Francisco Mesa Department of Periodontics, School of Dentistry, University of Granada, Spain Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Dr. Mesa: The size of an acute myocardial infarct (AMI) is one of the determinants of its severity, i.e., the degree of myocardial necrosis. This necrosis is indicated by peak troponin I levels in the blood. Among the acute myocardial infarct patients in our study, mediated regression analysis demonstrated that troponin I levels were higher, i.e., the infarct size was larger, in those with chronic periodontitis. (more…)