Interdisciplinary Care Model: Cardiovascular Diseases and Oral Health

This chapter focuses on coronary heart disease that affects the blood vessels that supply the heart muscle, cerebrovascular disease that disrupts the blood supply to the brain causing strokes and peripheral arterial disease that cause disruption of blood vessels supplying arms and legs. Although the pathogenesis of these diseases is not fully understood because of the complexity, a present working hypothesis of the role of infections in CVDs has been proposed, in which chronic infections (for example oral diseases) increases the levels of inflammation leading to exacerbation of mechanisms driving pathogenesis of CVD and CVD-related events. The authors describe various published studies that support a role for poor oral health in stimulation of cardio metabolic risk factors, atherothrombotic/sclerotic disease and increasing mortality risk. Similarly, the oral microbiome has been shown to play an important role in altering the balance between health and disease. This chapter provides a review of the mounting evidence base that increasingly points to the relationship between oral disease and promotion of CVD. The chapter also highlights the role of technology to improve and aid in clinical decision making through a variety of applications.