Periodontal Disease and Nutrition in Eskimo Scouts of the Alaska National Guard

¹ National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Public Health Service, Bethesda, Maryland, and U.S. Army Medical Research and Nutrition Laboratory, Fitzsimmons Hospital, Denver, Colorado

Six hundred and ninety-three men of the First and Second Scout Battalions of the Alaska National Guard were examined for periodontal disease in March, 1958. Determinations of total plasma protein, hemoglobin, serum ascorbic acid, vitamin A and carotene, and for urinary thiamin, riboflavin and N'methylnicotinamide were complete for 485 of the men. No association between signs of past or present periodontal disease and the levels of any of these nutrients could be demonstrated. Men from about half the villages represented showed very little indication of bone resorption, despite a high prevalence of active gingival disease.