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Poor Oral Health as a Chronic, Potentially Modifiable Dementia Risk Factor: Review of the Literature

Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports volume 13, Article number: 384 (2013) Cite this article

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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Acknowledgments

James M. Noble has received grant support from the Taub Institute (internal funding mechanism), and some of the prior research described was supported through this grant. He has also received grant support from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Nikolaos Scarmeas has received grant support from the National Institute on Aging (grant AG028506) and the Alzheimer’s Association (grant IIRG-04-1353).

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Conflict of Interest

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

Nikolaos Scarmeas and Panos N. Papapanou declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology and Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University, 710 W. 168th St, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    James M. Noble & Nikolaos Scarmeas

  2. Department of Social Medicine, Psychiatry and Neurology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Nikolaos Scarmeas

  3. Division of Periodontics, School of Dental Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Panos N. Papapanou

Authors
  1. James M. Noble
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  2. Nikolaos Scarmeas
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  3. Panos N. Papapanou
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Correspondence to James M. Noble.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Dementia

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Noble, J.M., Scarmeas, N. & Papapanou, P.N. Poor Oral Health as a Chronic, Potentially Modifiable Dementia Risk Factor: Review of the Literature. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 13, 384 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-013-0384-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-013-0384-x

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