FIGURE 1.

Periodontal disease associations with systemic diseases and conditions. Periodontal disease has been associated with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, eating disorders, liver disease, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer disease, rheumatoid arthritis, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and cancer. Proposed mechanisms that mediate this connection between oral and systemic health in a susceptible host include predisposing and precipitating factors, such as genetic factors (gene polymorphisms), environmental factors (stress, habits—such as smoking and high‐fat diets/consumption of highly processed foods), medications, microbial dysbiosis and bacteremias/viremias, and an altered host immune response. These associations exist within a framework of bacteremias/viremias/microbemias, systemic inflammation, and/or disturbances of the immune system in a susceptible host. (Figure courtesy of Dr Ryutaro Kuraji, Assistant Professor, Department of Life Science Dentistry, The Nippon Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Periodontology, The Nippon Dental University School of Life Dentistry at Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; Visiting Assistant Professor; Department of Orofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA)