Relation between periodontal disease and diabetics Research Paper

Relation between periodontal disease and diabetics - Research Paper Example The said article being reviewed here sought to find causal relationships between two chronic diseases which are diabetes and the two main periodontal diseases, which are gingivitis and periodontitis. The first pertains to a non-destructive inflammation of the gum tissues and is a very common form of periodontal disease while periodontitis is a severe form of the periodontal disease. Both forms are inflammation types of periodontal disease (itis is a medical suffix which means inflammation). Dr. Mealey had sought to find a link between periodontal diseases and the other very common affliction of most Americans, which is diabetes. Incidentally, diabetes affects approximately twenty million Americans, of whom some 35%-40% are not aware that they have diabetes (these figures translate to about 9% of the total adult American population). The main difficulty encountered in most of the medical research studies on diabetes and periodontal diseases is that the relationship between these two ailments is bi-directional. In other words, one disease affects the other disease in a circular sort of way. In this article, the two periodontal diseases (gingivitis and periodontitis) were found to have a marked influence on the pathogenesis of diabetes and the numerous complications arising from diabetes. But on the other hand, diabetes was also found to have an impact as risk factor on the two periodontal diseases. Possible Bias – after reviewing this article, one possible bias is the authors emphasis on diabetes as the causative factor in the prevalence, severity and extent for both gingivitis and periodontitis but as the author himself stated in his conclusions, the studies he had reviewed were all merely suggestive of this causal link. Numerous studies failed to conclusively find the direct link between diabetes and the two chronic inflammation periodontal diseases because the studies done previously failed to eliminate certain factors or confounders that