Thirty years ago, when I started associating periodontal disease to cardiovascular risk, other dentists told me I was overstepping. “Stay in your lane,” they said. But I kept seeing the same pattern. Patients with gum disease often had high blood pressure, AFib, valve issues—or worse. Decades later, the research confirms what I’d been seeing in my chair. A 2024 umbrella review by Arbildo-Vega et al. analyzed 41 systematic reviews and found that periodontal disease raises cardiovascular risk. (Source) Even more important: A 2024 meta-analysis by Meng et al. found that treating...

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