Periodontal Disease and Diabetes

If you have diabetes are you more likely to get periodontal disease?

Yes. Diabetes does make you more susceptible to infection-any infection-including periodontal disease. And there is evidence that people with diabetes have more periodontal disease.

There also seems to be some evidence of the relationship going the other way-that if you control periodontal disease, it may help you control your blood sugar.

Having an infection, including periodontal disease, can impair the body's ability to process and/or use insulin. So the theroy is that if you control the infection, it might be easier to control blood sugar.

For at least 50 years periodontists have felt that people with diabetes tended to have more severe peiodontal disease and the bulk of the research does show an association between the two diseases. Several studies have shown that the more poorly controlled the diabetes, the more severe the periodontal disease is likely to be.