A top dental health guru has revealed that diabetics could actually improve their condition. Dr Alp Kantarci's insights have been hailed as 'amazing' on the Zoe podcast, offering hope to those battling the disease. The multi-talented expert - a dentist, oral health researcher, periodontist, dental implant surgeon, and Forsyth Institute senior staffer - highlighted the well-established link between diabetes and gum disease.
He emphasised that oral health is a crucial barometer for diabetes, affecting all types of the condition, and proactive dental care can yield dramatic results. Dr Kantarci shared his expertise to say: "Diabetes was the first disease that was connected to gum disease. Back in the 1990s, the studies have shown that if you have diabetes, regardless of the type of diabetes, you will have gums that are bleeding.
"So that's important. So, oral health or the periodontal disease is one of the six major indicators or major symptoms of diabetes. So that's one of the major problems there and, in reverse, what we have found and what the studies have shown so far is that gum disease can also make the diabetes get worse.
"So there are interventional studies there which treated periodontal disease, gum disease and were able to reduce your diabetic disease. So, if you treat gum disease in a patient with diabetes, you can reduce your blood sugar levels, haemoglobin, A1C levels that can help our medical colleagues to treat the diabetes." Zoe App CEO Jonathan Wolf was taken a.
