A November 2020 study found more evidence of connections between rheumatoid arthritis and periodontal (gum) disease.
What Is Rheumatoid Arthritis?
Rheumatoid arthritis a chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disease, which causes the immune system to mistakenly attack healthy cells of the body. It results in painful swelling of the affected tissues. While RA primarily affects the joints of the body, it can also damage the skin, lungs, heart, blood vessels, and eyes.
How Is Rheumatoid Arthritis Connected to Gum Disease?
Although there’s still more to learn about whether or not one condition could be a cause of the other, past studies have found that people with RA are 8 times more likely to develop gum disease than those without RA. It’s also been found that the type of bacteria that causes periodontal disease, porphyromonas gingivalis, can lead to an earlier onset of RA and make it more severe.
Connections With Cardiovascular Disease
People with rheumatoid arthritis also face elevated risks for cardiovascular disease, which itself has links to periodontal disease.
The November 2020 study in Arthritis & Rheumatology found that a pathogen related to periodontal disease, called aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, “had the strongest associations with atherosclerosis in the patients with rheumatoid arthritis that we studied,” according to Jon T. Giles, MD, MPH, of Columbia University.
While research into the connections between periodontal disease and other diseases continues, this should further reinforce the importance of a healthy mouth. Preventing or treating gum disease may very well prevent or lessen the impact of ailments such as rheumatoid arthritis.
Links
Study – Higher prevalence of periodontal disease among those with RA – 8X
https://aap.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1902/jop.2008.070501
Porphyromonas gingivalis increases the severity of RA.
https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1003627#abstract1
Nov 2020 study – Associations of Antibodies Targeting Periodontal Pathogens with Subclinical Coronary, Carotid, and Peripheral Arterial Atherosclerosis in Rheumatoid Arthritis
Published in Arthritis & Rheumatology
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/art.41572
