Gum Disease May Increase Cancer Risk
May 28, 2008 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
A new study in the UK revealed that gum disease may increase the risk of cancer.
Though the link is still unclear, people with gum infections have increased amount of inflammatory markers in the blood — inflammation has previously been linked to cancer.
According to lead researcher Dominique Michaud, a cancer epidemiologist at Imperial College London (UK):
“Men with history of periodontal disease had a 14 percent higher risk of cancer than those who did not have periodontal disease, and the increase persisted among never smokers.
This new finding needs to be examined in other populations and among women, but it at least suggests that oral health may have some impact on cancer risk.
If other data can support this association, then it will have implications for prevention and may provide some new clues on the role of the immune function in cancer development.”
Such findings are reported and published in the June edition of the journal The Lancet Oncology.
Read more details from The Washington Post.
