Periodontal Disease Promotes Alzheimer's in Mice | Hacker News Reader

Periodontal Disease Promotes Alzheimer's in Mice

jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com

52 pointsleoh25 comments

Related: I tried a search for "gingivalis" and it turned up the following 3 submissions, all from 5 years ago and related to Alzheimer's.

P. gingivalis in Alzheimer's disease brains - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19596915 (49 comments)

Cause of Alzheimer’s: gingivalis, the key bacteria in chronic gum disease - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18984054 (12 comments)

Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer’s disease brains: Evidence for causation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18989630 (1 comment)

Can we look at people with Alzheimer's and check their periodontal records to confirm?

Before anyone starts with mouth wash several times a day..

The bacterial balance in the mouth[0] also play a role here and it’s not mentioned.

[0] Topic brought up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGVLqLxAl0I

This is life-changing if true, which makes me skeptical.

Any other comments on whether this is quackery or well-supported?

If you mean Dr. Nathan Bryan. He’s published a few studies that’s on pubmed[0], you can find them by searching.

He's formed a company around it so it's good to be skeptical. From what I've found on the subject brings up a lo confirm what he’s saying about it. However, his primary focus is Nitric oxide and blood circulation.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Bryan+NS&cauthor_id=36...

Not to be negative but I decided to google it up about 10% into the video and landed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_functions_of_nitric... immediately. It's supported by https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22549282, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2839282, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7585111 etc. definitely not just this guy's publications.

I think if anything it's a tradeoff, you definitely need blood circulation but it seems to make sense to not let too much wrong stuff in through dental issues, cavities and all that right next door to your brains too. But not a doctor of course.

I imagine the fix will be similar to a tetanus vaccine (perhaps developed with mRNA tech), keeping in mind that gum health and cardiovascular health are closely tied together [1].

[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/gum-disease-and-...

Is there a correlation between countries with free dental care and lower Alzheimer's rate?

Shame that even in many of the more socialist countries, dentist work is not covered as other healthcare is. Somehow it’s just considered optics/beauty and not critical healthcare. Less fortunate people only go when they are in extreme pain and as the damage has already been done (usually over a long time).

I no longer recall the source, but the incidence of major (high cost) dental work at some point in a person's life is so high (80%?) as to be uninsurable. Which is to say even if you balance the cost across the entire population the premium is so high that it too is onorous to afford.

That makes no sense. If people still get that work done they apparently have the money for it, so they also definitely have that same money spread out over years, which is what insurance is.

> If people still get that work done

They may just not.

I don't agree with the person above that it's impossible, but the spread between typical dental work spend and "worst case" is low and the odds of running into the high cost is high to the point that it's hard to come up with a proper insurance plan that makes sense both for customers and insurers.

This is presumably why most pure dental insurance plans, at least here in the UK, are effectively closer to (pre-)payment plans when you factor in the premium-to-cover ratio.

I have worse teeth than average, and even with payouts that would be far higher than average, I've yet to see a dental insurance plan in the UK that'd be worth it to me. For someone with a lower pain threshold for what they can afford to pay out of pocket, however, they can be marginally useful.

But for most people in that situation it'd likely still most of the time be better to take a (small) cashflow gamble and put the equivalent of the premiums into a savings account each month.

After the first few years, odds are you'd have built up enough that your savings would cushion you more than most dental insurance solutions on the UK market at least, other than accident insurance.

If I were to consider any dental insurance, I'd look for one that mostly excluded most things other than higher-payout accident insurance, as the ratio to premium vs. cover for one set of UK plans I looked at was ~1p/year per 1 pound cover and reimbursement of 100% of your costs vs. ~25p/year per 1 pound cover w/only 50% reimbursement + additional restrictions for non-accident treatments.

Alright, well, in my country pretty much everybody has dental insurance. So I still think it’s very possible, given an entire country appears to be able to manage it

I mean everyone dies and yet life insurance is a thing

idk what you mean by socialist countries but at least in france/germany medical procedures are 100% covered, only aesthetic procedures aren't covered, for example they'll patch you up with an ugly metal teeth and not the new top of the line realistic looking tooth replica.

You also get yearly or bi yearly checkups and yearly cleaning covered. For most people it's more than enough

In Germany cleanings are not covered, neither are Periodontitis treatments and also not even basic implants, only bridges.

In the Netherlands dental work is not covered at all for adults (besides pulling teeth by a surgeon)

You would have to get additional private dental insurance which only covers a certain percentage (mostly 50-75%) and is capped at around 750 Euros per annum while costing almost the same per annum.

Source: German living in NL and now having to pay out of my backside for Periodontitis treatment no matter if in Germany or NL

I was indeed referring to NL but also PT and ES that I know of.

"Periodontal disease (PD), or periodontitis, is an oral inflammatory disease caused by the host’s immunological response to periodontal pathogens [10]. PD is a significant public health burden with a high prevalence among adults. 42% of US adults aged 30 or older have periodontitis, with 7.8% having severe forms of the disease. Periodontitis prevalence increases with age, affecting more than 59% of adults over 65 [11, 12]. Chronic PD is a slow, progressive, irreversible degradation of the tooth-supporting apparatus (periodontium), leading to tooth loss. [13, 14]. PD is initiated by dysbiosis of the microbiome of the oral cavity and results in local inflammation, eventually contributing to chronic systemic inflammation [10, 15]. Periodontitis is associated with neurodegenerative diseases and neuroinflammatory processes through circulating mediators or direct access of the oral microbes to the CNS via systemic circulation [16,17,18]."

Floss!

Good oral hygiene (apparently) offers protection against heart disease as well. https://bmcoralhealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12...

I remember my dentist told me that.

my father, a cardiologist, had a very specific example of spurious correlation he taught to his students: "brushing your teeth correlates with heart disease". I think he would find it hilarious that this kind of correlation appears to be more than a funny example

Well, I’m doomed then…

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