Number of teeth and myocardial infarction and stroke among elderly never smokers

We investigated the association between tooth loss and atherosclerotic vascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and stroke in a homogeneous elderly population.The study population was comprised of a subpopulation of 392 community-living elderly people who participated in the population-based Kuopio 75+ study. The data were collected through an interview, a structured clinical health examination and from patient records. The main outcome measures were a history of diagnosed myocardial infarction and diagnosed ischemic stroke. Prevalence proportion ratios (PPR) were estimated using generalised linear models.Edentate subjects had a weakly, statistically non-significantly increased likelihood of a history of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke compared with dentate subjects. Those with a large number of teeth had a slightly, but not statistically significantly increased likelihood of a history of myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke compared with those with a small number of teeth.These data did not show evidence that total or partial tooth loss would be associated with atherosclerotic vascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke among an elderly population aged 75 years or older.Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are one of the main causes of death in the world, accounting for almost one third of all deaths world-wide [1] and about half of all deaths in Europe [2]. Cardiovascular diseases consist of heterogeneous groups of vascular diseases, with atherosclerotic vascular diseases being the commonest group. Although the risk factors of atherosclerotic vascular diseases include several risk factors such as abnormal lipids, hypertension, smoking and diabetes [3], a substantial proportion of cardiovascular events cannot be attributed to any of the risk factors [4].During the past three decades, oral epidemiologists have been actively testing the hypothesis that oral infections may be aetiological factors in atherosclerotic vascular disea