Gum Disease and Cancer Risk

Pancreatic cancer, a leading cause of cancer deaths, is elusive, with vague symptoms that often result in late diagnosis. Because it is so lethal and hard to detect until its advanced stages, scientists have been looking for ways to spot it early. Now researchers, including a team at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, think gum disease may one day help identify people at greater risk. Gum disease — which affects about a quarter of all adult Australians, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare — has been linked to stroke, diabetes and other ailments. The American Heart Association has disputed the notion that the association is causal, but some researchers speculate that poor gum health may give rise to chronic inflammation that promotes the growth of cancer cells. In a recent study published in the journal Gut, the Brown researchers compared 405 people with pancreatic cancer and 416 who did not have the disease. They found that higher levels of antibodies to Porphyromonas gingivalis, a bacterium that plays a role in gum disease, were twice as common in people with pancreatic cancer. Read more