from journal BMJ
Periodontal or gum disease has previously been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, and now we are told gum disease may raise risk of some forms of cancer. A team of researchers from Harvard examined the relationship between periodontal disease and tooth loss with risk of esophageal and gastric cancer in a database of nearly one hundred thousand women and nearly fifty thousand men. Over more than two decades of follow-up a history of periodontal disease and tooth loss was associated with about fifty percent greater chance of those cancers. Authors of the study in BMJ say among the possible reason is an association between oral bacteria and the two types of cancer.