2024-07-24 07:25:32
(ANSA) – ROME, JULY 23 – Periodontal disease is consistently associated with an increased risk of depression and anxiety: gum problems often go hand in hand with mood disorders.
This was revealed by a study conducted in China at the Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics of Qingdao University and published in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology. The experts used data from the British Biobank relating to 305,188 individuals, whose oral health status was estimated at the beginning of the study through questionnaires, as well as symptoms of depression and anxiety, assessed using the Mental Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4) several times in different time intervals. The researchers also took into account diagnoses of depression and anxiety disorders recorded in hospital registers. The analysis showed that periodontal disease is associated with an overall 79% greater risk of developing depression and/or anxiety over time. Periodontal disease was also significantly associated with the comorbidity of depression and anxiety, meaning there is a 27% probability that the two diseases are present at the same time. Finally, periodontitis increases the risk of depression alone by 19% and that of anxiety by 13%. The analysis of inflammatory factors at the beginning of the study (chronic inflammation is widely associated with both periodontitis and mood disorders), shows that the concentration of white blood cells and C-reactive protein explain only 3.07% and 3.15% of the association between periodontal disease and depression and anxiety, respectively. There must be other factors at play to explain the connections between the two diseases, in any case the authors found that periodontal disease is consistently associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety and their co-presence. (ANSA).
2024-07-24 07:25:32