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Review
. 2020 Apr 6;18(1):155.
doi: 10.1186/s12967-020-02326-8.

The effects of statins on dental and oral health: a review of preclinical and clinical studies

Shabnam Tahamtan  1 , Farinaz Shirban  1 , Mohammad Bagherniya  2 , Thomas P Johnston  3 , Amirhossein Sahebkar  4   5   6   7
Affiliations
Review

The effects of statins on dental and oral health: a review of preclinical and clinical studies

Shabnam Tahamtan et al. J Transl Med. .

Abstract

The statin family of drugs are safe and effective therapeutic agents for the treatment of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD). Due to a wide range of health benefits in addition to their cholesterol lowering properties, statins have recently attracted significant attention as a new treatment strategy for several conditions, which are not directly related to normalizing a lipid profile and preventing CVD. Statins exert a variety of beneficial effects on different aspects of oral health, which includes their positive effects on bone metabolism, their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, and their potential effects on epithelization and wound healing. Additionally, they possess antimicrobial, antiviral, and fungicidal properties, which makes this class of drugs attractive to the field of periodontal diseases and oral and dental health. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been no comprehensive study to date, which has investigated the effects of statin drugs on different aspects of dental and oral health. Therefore, the primary objective of this paper was to review the effect of statins on dental and oral health. Results of our extensive review have indicated that statins possess remarkable and promising effects on several aspects of dental and oral health including chronic periodontitis, alveolar bone loss due to either extraction or chronic periodontitis, osseointegration of implants, dental pulp cells, orthodontic tooth movement, and orthodontic relapse, tissue healing (wound/bone healing), salivary gland function, and finally, anti-cancer effects. Hence, statins can be considered as novel, safe, inexpensive, and widely-accessible therapeutic agents to improve different aspects of dental and oral health.

Keywords: Dental health; Oral health; Periodontal disease; Statin; Therapeutic agent.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic summary of pathways of the effect of Statins on different aspects of Oral and Dental health and its potential related mechanisms
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Schematic summary of pathways of the effect of Statins on Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and on Oral and Dental diseases and their potential related mechanisms
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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