II. SYSTEMIC FACTORS IN PERIODONTAL DISEASE

The Relation of Nutrition to Periodontal Disease

¹ Harvard School of Dental Medicine

A variety of nutritional deficiencies has been shown to influence the integrity of the various tissues in the periodontium. Indeed, the maintenance of each different component of the periodontium is influenced by one or more acute or chronic states of nutritional deficiency. Apart from whether these deficiencies are underlying systemic factors in the causation of periodontal disease in man, they may prove to be unexcelled tools for the study of the systemic problems involved in the maintenance of the periodontium in experimental animals. However, the situation with respect to the relationship of nutritional deficiencies to the incidence of the various types of periodontal disease in man is uncertain. Intensive investigations will need to be conducted under carefully controlled circumstances before conclusions can be drawn about the possible relationship between the metabolic abnormalities induced by nutritional deficiencies and periodontal disease.

There is also a great need for intensive investigation on the relationship of a variety of systemic factors to the etiology of periodontal syndromes in experimental animals. The time appears to be ripe for the development of strains of experimental subjects that are prone to develop one or the other periodontal syndrome. When this step has been taken, offspring suitable for the development of well-controlled assay procedures will become available. The rapid progress in the field of experimental dental caries during these three decades is a goal worthy of emulation in the establishment of a sound basis for the study of experimental periodontal disease.