Yahoo News Dentist reveals 'extraordinary' game-changer for people living with diabetes
A leading dental health specialist has shared some potentially life-changing advice for individuals with diabetes. Dr Alp Kantarci, a respected figure in the field of dentistry and oral health research, made an appearance on the Zoe podcast where his guidance was hailed as 'amazing' and could be a game-changer for those living with diabetes.
Dr Kantarci, who boasts an impressive resume as a scientist, dentist, periodontist, dental implant surgeon, and a senior member at the Forsyth Institute, highlighted the well-established connection between diabetes and gum disease. He emphasised that oral health was a significant indicator of diabetes, affecting all types of the condition, and proactive dental care could lead to positive outcomes.
On the podcast, he explained: "Diabetes was the first disease that was connected to gum disease. Back in the 1990s the studies have shown that if you have diabetes, regardless of the type of diabetes, you will have gums that are bleeding."
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He continued, stressing the importance of this link: "So that's important. So, oral health or the periodontal disease is one of the six major indicators or major symptoms of diabetes. So that's one of the major problems there and in reverse what we have found and what the studies have shown so far is that gum disease can also make the diabetes get worse." For the latest health and Covid news, sign up to our newsletter here
Interventional studies indicate that treating periodontal disease not only combats gum issues but can also lower blood sugar levels in patients with diabetes, potentially aiding overall diabetic disease management, reports Gloucestershire Live.
Zoe App CEO Jonathan Wolf expressed his astonishment at the findings, commenting: "I just want to make sure I've got that because I've never heard that before. And it's really amazing - you're saying someone has diabetes, which is an incredibly serious disease with this enormous number of people, who have it today, who are living with it today, and you're saying that for those people who also have some sort of oral health problem, if you treat that oral health problem, actually, suddenly their blood sugar control gets better. The intensity of the diabetes is actually reduced, is that right? Which is extraordinary."
Validating this remarkable link, Dr. Kantarci concurred, stressing the substantiation behind his point: "It is. But it's also proven. That's why I started with diabetes because diabetes sets as the basis of all of our systemic disease." He explained what people needed to do to improve their health condition: "So you treat two things. Number one, you reduce the bacterial load by treating gum disease. But the second one is that you're also reducing your inflammatory burden on your body by treating gum disease.
"So your inflammatory burden is one of the reasons why your diabetes gets worse. Your blood sugar goes up, your haemoglobin A1C levels go up and your response to diabetic treatments or diabetic drugs and so on and so forth will be completely impaired. This is the humbling moment that the dentist becomes a part of the medical team because we're not treating diabetes. We treat our own diseases. We treat our teeth, we treat our gums, we treat our oral cavity, but we can help our medical colleagues treat their patients better if the patients are treated by us too."
