Obesity is a threat for gums as well!

London, Dec 18 (UNI) Excess weight is already the cause of fifty diseases and now a new addition to the list is it's adverse affect on gums.

Overeating may ruin your looks in more ways than you think. It impairs the body's ability to fight gum disease, increasing the chances of tooth loss, according to a reserach conducted on mice.

The researchers from Boston University Medical Center in Massachusetts found that the obese mice were at incresed risk of gum diseases than the lean ones, the 'New Scientist' reported.

They infected both types of mice with Porphyromonas gingivalis, a bacterium that causes gum disease, and then studied how their bodies coped. Some of the mice were infected directly in the gum area; others had the bacterium injected into their bloodstream.

In both cases, fat mice were slower to kill the bacterium because their immune response was blunted. Within 10 days of infection, obese mice infected at the gum also showed 40 per cent more bone loss in their tooth sockets Lead reseracher Salomon Amar believes obese people are at higher risk of gum disease and tooth loss, and should visit their dentists more often. He says bacterium P gingivalis is also associated with cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

UNI