Cancer Risk Increases From Gum Disease
According to the researchers of Imperial college, London,U.K, people having gum infections have higher risk for cancer. This is due to the increased amount of inflammator markers circulating in their blood, and this inflammation shows a link to cancer.
Team of lead researcher Dominique Michaud, a cancer epidemiologist at Imperial College London, in U.K collected data of more than 48,000 American men including 40 to 75 health professionals which is going to be published in the June edition of the journal The Lancet Oncology. They found that during an average of 17.7 years of follow up, 5,720 cancer cases were reported having colorectal, melanoma, lung and bladder and advanced prostate cancer.
After taking into account other risk factors like smoking and diet, the researchers found that men with history of gum disease had a 14% higher risk of developing cancer compared with men not having a history of gum disease. Some of the cancers have typically higher risk rate like, lung cancer has risk of 36%, kidney caner has a 49% risk, pancreatic cancer 54%, and white blood cell cancer is 30%.
Moreover they discovered that the men with fewer teeth at the beginning of the study had a 70% increased risk of developing lung cancer, compared to the men having 25 to 32 teeth. While the men who have never smoked have 0% risk of developing cancer.
Thus the study concludes that that there is a link between the oral health or the inflammatory markers circulating in the blood, and cancer. But the exact link between the cancer and gum infection is not still known. And so they need to examine these new findings in more populations and women.
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com
Filed under Cancer, Health, Lung
