MedDiet Adherence May Protect Against Gum Disease

Summary

A study in the UK found that adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet is linked to bet­ter out­comes in peri­odon­tal inflam­ma­tion, with those con­sum­ing more fruits, veg­eta­bles, and legumes hav­ing lower lev­els of inflam­ma­tion. The research also high­lighted the poten­tial sys­temic effects of peri­odon­tal dis­ease, includ­ing increased risk of devel­op­ing dia­betes, rheuma­toid arthri­tis, and inflam­ma­tory bowel dis­eases, with diet play­ing a sig­nif­i­cant role in the dis­ease’s pro­gres­sion and treat­ment. Further stud­ies are needed to fully under­stand the impact of diet on peri­odon­ti­tis and explore poten­tial inter­ven­tions to mit­i­gate its effects.

A diet screen­ing con­ducted on a small sam­ple pop­u­la­tion in the United Kingdom revealed that higher adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet is asso­ci­ated with bet­ter out­comes in peri­odon­tal inflam­ma­tion.

The study, pub­lished in the Journal of Periodontology, found that a bal­anced diet may have a sig­nif­i­cant impact on a dis­ease that affects a large seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion.

Scientists assessed 200 hos­pi­tal patients, look­ing at both their den­tal health and blood mark­ers of inflam­ma­tion. 

Reducing very pro-inflam­ma­tory diets and adopt­ing the Mediterranean diet would prob­a­bly have a pro­tec­tive effect on peri­odon­ti­tis.- Luigi Nibali, peri­odon­tol­ogy pro­fes­sor, King’s College London

Of 195 patients with com­plete data, 112 reported high adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet, while the rest ate less health­ily and con­sumed more red meat.

The results showed that peo­ple with low adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet were more likely to suf­fer from severe gum dis­ease.

“Frequent red meat con­sump­tion, in par­tic­u­lar, was strongly linked with more advanced forms of peri­odon­ti­tis,” Giuseppe Mainas, a researcher at the peri­odon­tol­ogy unit at King’s College London and co-author of the study, told Olive Oil Times.

See Also:Researchers Investigate Links Between MedDiet Adherence and Oral Health

On the other hand, indi­vid­u­als who con­sumed more plant-based foods had lower lev­els of sev­eral inflam­ma­tory mark­ers in their blood.

“We have not yet iden­ti­fied a direct effect, but diet seems to influ­ence peri­odon­ti­tis mainly through inflam­ma­tion,” Mainas said. ​“A diet such as the Mediterranean diet, which is asso­ci­ated with lower lev­els of inflam­ma­tion, may indi­rectly help pre­vent or improve peri­odon­tal dis­ease.”

“Certain foods play a clear role. Red meat is not ideal, while legumes and veg­eta­bles are con­sid­ered anti-inflam­ma­tory,” he added. 

In the study, researchers found that peo­ple who con­sumed more fruits, veg­eta­bles and legumes had lower lev­els of inflam­ma­tion. Meanwhile, those who ate excess red meat were more often in the group with advanced peri­odon­tal dis­ease.

Researchers also observed how not only a high-sugar diet seems to fuel the con­di­tion, but also a diet high in car­bo­hy­drates.

“Adding to that, cur­rent stud­ies increas­ingly show neg­a­tive impacts on peri­odon­ti­tis linked to the con­sump­tion of highly processed prod­ucts,” said Luigi Nibali, co-author of the research and pro­fes­sor at the Center for Host Microbiome Interactions at King’s College London.

One key sig­nal, the mol­e­cule interleukin‑6, was con­sis­tently asso­ci­ated with worse gum health. 

Higher lev­els of this pro-inflam­ma­tory mol­e­cule were asso­ci­ated with more severe gum dis­ease, under­scor­ing its role as a link between oral health and sys­temic inflam­ma­tion. 

The find­ings strengthen the link between diet, inflam­ma­tion and oral dis­ease.

“Periodontitis is a very com­mon patho­log­i­cal con­di­tion. It can affect between 40 and 50 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion,” Nibali said. ​“Such ill­ness is basi­cally caused by bac­te­ria present in the den­tal plaque, which leads to gum inflam­ma­tion and resorp­tion of the bone that holds the teeth.”

Over time, the con­di­tion affects the sta­bil­ity of the teeth. Approximately ten per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion loses teeth due to this gum dis­ease.

Periodontitis can also extend well beyond the oral cav­ity. 

“It is fairly well proven that peri­odon­tal bac­te­ria do not remain con­fined to the mouth, but can travel through the blood­stream, reach­ing other parts of the body and trig­ger­ing an immune inflam­ma­tory response that may con­tribute to var­i­ous other dis­eases,” Nibali said.

A wide range of chronic con­di­tions is asso­ci­ated with peri­odon­ti­tis, com­monly referred to as non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases. 

These dis­eases are not spread from per­son to per­son. Their onset is instead due to fac­tors such as genet­ics, envi­ron­ment, or lifestyle habits, includ­ing smok­ing, a lack of phys­i­cal activ­ity, or a poor diet. 

The most com­mon non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases include car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases, can­cer and chronic res­pi­ra­tory dis­eases.

“Therefore, peri­odon­tal patients are at higher risk of devel­op­ing, for exam­ple, dia­betes, rheuma­toid arthri­tis and even inflam­ma­tory bowel dis­eases,” Nibali said.

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Part of the risk comes from genetic fac­tors and part from shared risk fac­tors, which can include diet.

“With dia­betes, there is a bidi­rec­tional effect: hav­ing dia­betes pre­dis­poses a per­son to peri­odon­ti­tis, and at the same time, not treat­ing peri­odon­ti­tis wors­ens dia­betes,” Nibali said.

“There are sev­eral risk fac­tors that com­bine, but the key issue is plaque con­trol. The more plaque builds up and the less the teeth are cleaned prop­erly, the higher the risk of devel­op­ing peri­odon­ti­tis,” he added.

The researchers also empha­sized the cru­cial role that genetic fac­tors play. 

“We also see very young patients who brush their teeth quite well yet some­times develop peri­odon­ti­tis, while older patients who have never brushed prop­erly do not have it. That depends on genetic pre­dis­po­si­tion, as with many other con­di­tions,” Nibali said.

A sep­a­rate study, recently pub­lished in NPJ Aging, shows that a palmitic-acid diet wors­ened oral bone loss by more than 40 per­cent in mice. 

According to research, the type of dietary fat can sig­nif­i­cantly impact the sys­temic dam­age asso­ci­ated with peri­odon­tal dis­ease.

Researchers com­pared mice fed a Western-style diet rich in palmitic acid with those on a Mediterranean-style diet high in oleic acid, the main fat in olive oil. 

In aged mice infected with bac­te­ria linked to gum dis­ease, the palmitic-acid diet not only wors­ened oral bone loss but also dis­rupted gut micro­biome sta­bil­ity and primed bone mar­row cells for inflam­ma­tion. 

By con­trast, the oleic-acid diet reduced alve­o­lar and femoral bone loss, pre­served gut bal­ance and increased stress-resilience mark­ers in bone pre­cur­sor cells.

According to the research, replac­ing sat­u­rated fats with oleic acid could pro­vide a sim­ple way to mit­i­gate both the oral and sys­temic effects of peri­odon­tal infec­tion with­out med­ica­tion, par­tic­u­larly in aging pop­u­la­tions.

However, researchers cau­tioned that fur­ther stud­ies are needed to assess the impacts accu­rately.

Looking at the cur­rent knowl­edge on the sub­ject, Nibali noted that ​“reduc­ing very pro-inflam­ma­tory diets and adopt­ing the Mediterranean diet would prob­a­bly have a pro­tec­tive effect on peri­odon­ti­tis.”

“Still, con­clu­sive stud­ies in this area are truly chal­leng­ing,” he added.

The chal­lenges stem from var­i­ous fac­tors: patients’ diets are dif­fi­cult to stan­dard­ize or track pre­cisely, and lifestyle fac­tors such as smok­ing, hygiene, and exer­cise over­lap, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to iso­late the spe­cific role of diet.

“Of course, this was a small study and much more research is needed, but the results are mean­ing­ful and could point toward some­thing more con­crete,” Mainas said.

Both Nibali and Mainas men­tioned expand­ing to larger cohorts, incor­po­rat­ing metabolomics and metage­nomics and explor­ing fast­ing-mim­ic­k­ing diets.