Chronic inflammation – the link between periodontal and cardiovascular disease

Abstract

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death and morbidity in many developed countries. Many risk factors for CHD have been identified, but a significant proportion of CHD is not explained by traditional risk factors. Recently, several lines of evidence have implicated chronic inflammation etiologically in CHD and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Periodontal disease is a chronic gram-negative anaerobic infection of the tooth-supporting structures. Periodontal disease is associated with elevations of several markers of chronic inflammation, and because of evidence implicating chronic inflammation in the etiology of CHD, an etiologic relationship between periodontal disease and CVD has been hypothesized. For these reasons, there has been strong interest in evaluating whether periodontal disease is independently associated with CVD.