Periodontitis: An Emerging Risk Factor for Diabetes

The emerging field of periodontal medicine offers new insights into the concept of the oral cavity as one system interconnected with the whole human body. Thus, periodontists of the future will need to understand routine medical diagnostic tests used to monitor patients with systemic conditions that are modified by oral infection. The impact of oral infection on systemic health thus further defines the new branch of periodontology termed periodontal medicine. There are various recent scientific evidences suggesting moderate untreated periodontitis may affect an individual systemically, and may contribute to cardiovascular disease, diabetes. This means a two-way relationship in which periodontal disease in an individual may be a powerful influence on an individual's systemic health or disease as well as the more customarily understood role that systemic disease may have in influencing an individual's periodontal health or disease. Logically included in this definition would be new diagnostic and treatment strategies that recognize the relationship between periodontal disease and systemic disease.