Call the dentist.
Receding gums reveal more bone loss around the roots of obese mice teeth ( down ), indicating the disease more severe gum as that found in lean mice ( top ).
Salomon Amar / Boston University
Fat mouse should consider flossing. Although not the exact conclusion of a new report, the study indicates that - at least in rodents - obesity weakens the immune system's ability to fight against the bacteria that cause gum disease. The discovery helps explain why obese people are more likely to develop oral disease and suggests they may be more vulnerable to other bacterial infections as well.
Obesity increases the risk of developing many serious illnesses, including heart disease, diabetes and some cancers, and a growing body of evidence indicates that it also impairs the immune system. Earlier this year, a study in mice has found that obese animals had more trouble against viruses and previous research in people suggests that obesity suppresses the key elements of the immune system that help to kill germs . Now a team led by oral biologist Salomon Amar of Boston University showed for the first time that obesity also appears to reduce the immune system's ability to thwart bacteria.
The first thing the researchers needed to do was to plump up some mice. Five mice fed a calorie, rich fat diet for 16 weeks inflated to 42 grams, or 1.5 times the weight of the animals to eat on standard mouse chow. Next, the researchers wrapped a silk soaked in a solution containing bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis , that cause gingivitis, around a tooth of each mouse to cause disease gum infection. Compared to lean animals, the obese mice had 40% bone loss around the roots of their teeth within 10 days after infection and have higher levels of bacteria in dental plaque.
Further experiments showed that obese mice was sluggish immune system. When the researchers injected the gingivalis bacteria in the animals' tails, lean mice struck components of the immune system that respond to infections, including tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6. This response was blunted in obese mice. The researchers report their results online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
How obesity affects the immune system is not yet clear, but the researcher in infectious diseases Herbert Tanowitz of Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York suggests that chronic inflammation low level that occurs as a result of obesity can somehow be at fault.
Periodontist microbiologist Robert Genco of the University of Buffalo in New York state says the findings raise the possibility that another component of the immune system, neutrophils, is also removed from obesity. Neutrophils, which are not tracked in this study, to kill bacteria, so if these cells are compromised, more serious illnesses may develop, he said.
Tanowitz says that obese people probably have the same impaired immune response, a serious concern because gum disease can lead to tooth loss and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. "There is evidence that people who are obese have more problems, at least in the hospital with bacterial infections," he said.
Related Sites
- Overview of obesity
- Information from the World Health Organization on obesity
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