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Can Lack of Vitamin D and Gum Disease put You at Risk of Diabetes

If you are vulnerable to type 2 diabetes, then you must ensure a healthy diet, exercise every day, regulate alcohol consumption or quit drinking, avoid smoking and processed foods, watch your blood pressure and have an active lifestyle. You should also guard against hypertension and stress, anxiety and other common ills of contemporary life. Type 2 diabetes and gum disease are connected. The scientific findings are not complete and more research is needed but there is increasing evidence establishing a connection between type 2 diabetes gum disease and by extension with vitamin D.


A study conducted by Aleksandra Zuk and her team assessed health data of people aged over thirty in the United States. They found a correlation between vitamin D-3 and gum disease. People who have gum disease are likely to have a deficiency of vitamin D-3. This is considered to be the most important of all D vitamins. The deficiency of vitamin D-3 thereby increases the risk of gum disease. This increases the risks of type 2 diabetes.

Aleksandra Zuk is pursuing her PhD in epidemiology from Dalla Lana School of Public Health of the University of Toronto. She stated that vitamin D deficiency does not necessarily cause type 2 diabetes or gum disease for that matter. The study simply finds as a matter of fact that those who have a deficiency of this specific type of vitamin D have gum disease and are likely to have type 2 diabetes, if they do not have it already.

Vitamin D, the D-3 vitamin to be more specific, can prevent gum disease or periodontitis. Ensuring enough vitamin D-3 can thereby also prevent diabetes since those who do not have gum disease are less likely to have the chronic lifestyle ailment. Gum disease or periodontitis is an inflammatory ailment. It is also chronic. The disease is caused by microbes in the mouth. These microbes, if not attended to and eliminated, would damage the tissues supporting your teeth. There may be bone loss in due course of time. Vitamin D is known to be one of the essential nutrients for optimum bone health. Hence, vitamin D can limit or undo the damage caused by the microbes in the mouth. Also, vitamin D is antimicrobial. It can fight the microbes and prevent gum disease. Vitamin D is also known to be anti-inflammatory so even if someone has gum disease or periodontitis, the symptoms may be more manageable as the severity of the inflammation would be much less compared to another person who already has a deficiency of vitamin D-3.

A few clinical trials are presently being conducted in many countries to explore the correlation of vitamin D, gum disease and diabetes. The inferences of these trials will establish the exact nature of the correlation and if ensuring optimum levels of vitamin D-3 can completely prevent gum disease and to what extent it may make a person less vulnerable to diabetes. Vitamin D is available in the form of supplements. Some people are prescribed such supplements to cure a deficiency and in cases of other health ailments wherein the vitamin is necessary as a part of the treatment or recovery. Many people opt for over the counter supplements for different purposes. Whether or not these supplements would be able to prevent gum disease and how much of an impact they would have on the likelihood of diabetes or otherwise should become more lucid as the clinical trials are completed.

Both gum disease and diabetes are becoming more common among people of most age groups. Vitamin deficiency is also becoming a more concerning health problems, despite people being more conscious of their dietary habits nowadays. It is perhaps best to be a little more conscious than develop a chronic lifestyle disease.

 

 

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Written by Wayne Parker

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