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Review
. 2013 Oct;13(10):384.
doi: 10.1007/s11910-013-0384-x.

Poor oral health as a chronic, potentially modifiable dementia risk factor: review of the literature

James M Noble  1 , Nikolaos Scarmeas, Panos N Papapanou
Affiliations
Review

Poor oral health as a chronic, potentially modifiable dementia risk factor: review of the literature

James M Noble et al. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2013 Oct.

Abstract

Poor oral health, including caries, tooth loss, and periodontitis, is ubiquitous worldwide, and is potentially treatable and preventable. Like adverse oral health conditions, Alzheimer disease and related disorders are also very common among aging populations. Established risk factors for Alzheimer disease include cerebrovascular disease and its vascular risk factors, many of which share associations with evidence of systemic inflammation also identified in periodontitis and other poor oral health states. In this review, we present epidemiologic evidence of links between poor oral health and both prevalent and incident cognitive impairment, and review plausible mechanisms linking these conditions, including evidence from compelling animal models. Considering that a large etiologic fraction of dementia remains unexplained, these studies argue for further multidisciplinary research between oral health conditions, including translational, epidemiologic, and possibly clinical treatment studies.

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Conflict of interest statement

Compliance with Ethics Guidelines

Conflict of Interest

James M. Noble has received honoraria from Barclays for a single consulting event regarding IVIg as an AD therapeutic (trial has since been reported as failure).

Nikolaos Scarmeas declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Panos N. Papapanou declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Proposed pathway associating poor oral health and cognitive impairment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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