Diabetes and oral health are related? Yes they are! I recently had the opportunity to film a segment for the Alabama Department of Health on how diabetes affects oral health, and vice versa. Through contacts at The University of Alabama at Birmingham I became involved in an initiative called PPOD (Pharmacists, podiatrists, optometrists, and dentists).
PPOD is a program from the National Diabetes Education Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), designed to engage providers from each of these disciplines so they can work together in actively identifying and treating patients with diabetes in a team-based care approach. By using this approach, providers can significantly reduce patients’ risk of developing complications associated with diabetes like blindness, lower-extremely ulcers and amputation, gum disease, tooth loss, heart disease, and adverse reactions from drug interactions or poor drug therapy management.
The attached video is pretty technical in nature, and is targeted mainly for other dentists so they can better understand the topic and educate their own patients. However, I wanted to share this video here for anyone who might be interested. The bottom line is that people with diabetes (particularly poorly controlled diabetes) are more likely to have gum disease, and people with poorly controlled gum disease can have more trouble controlling their blood sugar. Controlling each condition (diabetes and your oral health) will help the other.
See more videos about how diabetes affects other areas of the body here.
More info on oral and total body health here.
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