The diseases most people die of have been attributed to unhealthy lifestyles. But evidence now suggests bacteria are to blame, heralding a revolution in medicine.
Strikingly, many of the afflictions of ageing – from rheumatoid arthritis to Parkinson’s – are more likely, more severe, or both, in people with gum disease. It is possible that some third thing goes wrong, leading to both gum disease and the other maladies. But there is increasing evidence that the relationship is direct: the bacteria behind gum disease help cause the others.
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In January, teams at eight universities and the San Francisco company Cortexyme found a protein-digesting enzyme called gingipain, produced only by P. gingivalis, in 99 per cent of brain samples from people who died with Alzheimer’s, at levels corresponding to the severity of the condition. They also found the bacteria in spinal fluid. Giving mice the bacteria caused symptoms of Alzheimer’s, and blocking gingipains reversed the damage.
Moreover, half of the brain samples from people without Alzheimer’s also had gingipain and amyloid, but at lower levels. That is as you would expect if P. gingivalis causes Alzheimer’s, because damage can accumulate for 20 years before symptoms start. People who develop symptoms may be those who accumulate enough gingipain damage during their lifetimes, says Casey Lynch at Cortexyme.
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P. gingivalis may literally break our hearts too. There is growing evidence for a causal link to atherosclerosis, or “hardening of the arteries”. Researchers have found P. gingivalis in the fatty deposits that line arterial walls and cause blood clots. When bits of clots clog blood vessels in hearts or brains, they cause heart attack and stroke.
The bacteria trigger the molecular changes in artery linings that are typical of atherosclerosis, says Genco. We have also found that P. gingivalis creates the lipoproteins thought to trigger atherosclerosis, causes it in pigs and affects arteries much like high fat diets. Lakshmyya Kesavalu at the University of Florida, who has cultured viable P. gingivalis from the atherosclerotic aortas of mice, calls the bacteria “causal”.
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The link is clearer for type 2 diabetes, in which people lose sensitivity to insulin and eventually can’t make enough to control blood sugar. It is currently a pandemic, blamed on the usual lifestyle suspects.
Diabetes worsens gum disease, because high blood sugar levels hurt immune cells. But gum disease also worsens diabetes, and treating it helps as much as adding a second drug to the regimen taken by someone with the condition, according to the American Academy of Periodontology. Treatment is now recommended by diabetes associations, yet none of them list gum disease as a risk factor. As with other conditions, there is evidence that P. gingivalis isn’t promoting diabetes just by adding to the body’s inflammatory load, but may also be acting directly in the liver and pancreas to cut insulin sensitivity.
“It is very hard to prove causation in a complex disease,” says Genco. We know that mice given a mouthful of P. gingivalis get gum disease – and diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, fatty liver disease and Alzheimer’s-like symptoms. We know that, in humans, gum disease makes the other diseases more likely, and that P. gingivalis lurks in the affected tissues and makes the precise cellular changes typical of these conditions.
This article is worth every penny of the $25 dollars I just spent to renew my subscription. And I already knew most of it. I hope your library can get you access. I can't copy and paste all of it.
This is the most important thing happening on the planet right now.
This is a fundamental paradigm shift that affects every single one of us.
In normal times this would be getting a lot of coverage.
But nooooooooo.... we can't have basic science or simple solutions or good news anymore.....instead we must spend every byte of every communication medium panicking over the apocalyptic antics of one very extreme case of this pathology....
And on that theme:
This is the toothpaste I have been looking for.
Cleure Natural Baking Soda Toothpaste
I look for unflavored toothpaste because the mint and fruit and bubblegum ones taste so gross. I really like this one. It's slightly sweet. This stuff feels so good, not foamy or waxy, leaves my gums much happier, and my sad old teeth smoother and whiter than anything else I've tried. Totally worth the price.
