Abstract
Periodontal disease has come to be recognized as one of the risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease. However, few previous studies have investigated the cardiovascular risk associated with periodontal disease after adjusting for the wide range of factors that could confound this association. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of periodontal disease and its treatment on the risk of cardiovascular disease using health insurance receipt data.
This study was conducted using the data of 235,779 subjects retrieved from the database of the National Health Insurance Association, Hokkaido Branch. They underwent a specific health examination and did not receive a dental examination in 2014, and were analyzed using health examination data and medical and dental receipt data.
The subjects were classified into 3 groups based on the 2015 dental receipts, as follows: 1) "No dental visits"; 2) "1 to 4 dental visits"; 3) "5 or more dental visits."
Logistic regression analyses were conducted to determine whether periodontal disease represents a risk factor for the development of cerebral infarction and myocardial infarction. In these analyses, the outcomes were cerebral infarction and myocardial infarction in 2015 and 2016, and the explanatory variables were the periodontal disease classification (explained above) and confounding factors in 2015.
The results of the logistic regression analysis using the 2015 cerebral infarction data showed that the incidence of cerebral infarction was significantly associated with the presence of periodontal disease ( "1 to 4 dental visits" OR: 1.95; "5 or more dental visits" OR: 1.63), suggesting the increased risk of cerebral infarction associated with periodontal disease. Similar results were obtained using the 2016 cerebral infarction data ( "1 to 4 dental visits" OR: 1.63; "5 or more dental visits" OR: 1.61), suggesting that the risk of development of cerebral infarction in patients with periodontal disease may not have changed one year after the start of periodontal treatment.
