Type 2 Diabetes – Obesity and Gum Disease!
Obesity and gum disease are both frequently seen in people with diabetes, and according to researchers at Brigham and the Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the two are associated, in both diabetics and non-diabetics. Their study was published in the journal Obesity in October 2011.
Study 1: Included in the study were 36,910 volunteers who had no gum disease at the start of the study. After 20 years it was found people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/square meter, considered obese, had a thirty percent higher risk of disease of the gums, than those with a normal BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 kg/square meter. The volunteers who:
had a large waist measurement were 27 percent more likely to have gum disease than those who had a normal waist size, and
those with a high weight to height ratio were 34 percent more likely to suffer diseased gums than patients with a normal ratio.
According to the study, inflammation brought on by obesity can cause gum disease.
Study 2: In 2007 investigators at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA, looked at inflammatory molecules in the portal vein, a vein that carries blood from abdominal fat. In their article, published in the journal Diabetes, they described finding the inflammatory molecules in 25 extremely obese volunteers. The amount of interleukin-6, associated with inflammation, was found to be higher in blood taken from the portal vein, which carries blood from the abdominal fat, than in blood taken from an artery in the arm.
Study 3: In September, 2011 the Iranian Journal of Immunology reported upon a study completed on the subject of inflammatory molecules and gum disease. Researchers at the University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran, looked at inflammatory molecules in the blood of people with severe gum disease. Twenty-five volunteers with severe gum disease were found to have higher levels of IL-6 in their blood than 25 study participants without gum disease.
According to the American Diabetes Association, gum disease can cause diabetes to go out of control. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, USA, about 34 percent of American adults suffer gum disease, and the condition can result in tooth loss, as well as being associated with generally poor health, heart and blood vessel disease, and complications of pregnancy.
From the above it is apparent that losing belly fat could help to prevent diseased gums, an important cause of tooth loss. Losing weight is already known to be helpful in:
controlling Type 2 diabetes, and
preventing high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.
If your waist-to-hip ratio is greater than 0.7 for women or 0.9 for men, why not start a campaign today to bring your belly fat down to a normal healthy level?