Periodontal disease and diabetes in young adults.

The observation that chronic infection predisposes to difficulty in regulation of diabetes is a concept which has been stressed by numerous authors. 1 Infection and inflammatory reactions may increase insulin requirements in a previously stable diabetic patient. 2 Much attention has been devoted in the past toward control of indolent urinary tract infections 1c or skin infections 3 among patients with diabetes; however, relatively scanty regard has been directed at systematic eradication of chronic periodontal disease among diabetics. Purpose of Study Recently we have been impressed by the striking frequency with which the relatively young diabetic patients seen in a military practice manifest extensive periodontal disease which heretofore had been undiagnosed and untreated. This is, in fact, an observation to which numerous references have been made since 1899, when Grunert 4 stressed the association of far-advanced pyorrhea with diabetes mellitus. In 1928, Williams 2b described a group of oral conditions