by Nancy Quinn

Created on: January 30, 2010   Last Updated: February 02, 2010

While the majority of people ignore their misgivings about the dentist's chair and faithfully schedule dental check ups to ensure the health of their teeth and gums, compelling research is coming to the forefront why good oral health care is even more imperative for one's overall health. Among the familiar health benefits of maintaining healthy teeth and gums, there is the possibility that you may even be reducing your risk of pancreatic cancer as well.

An article that was recently published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute revealed that men with poor oral health have a significantly higher risk of developing pancreatic cancer over those with good oral health. Researchers first began to discover a possible link between gum disease and pancreatic cancer in 1986 when performing a study as part of the Health Professionals Follow-Up study. Over a six-year time frame, 216 male study participants out of 51,529 were confirmed to have pancreatic cancer. And of those 216 participants who developed pancreatic cancer, 67 of those patients had gum disease. The risk appears to be even higher for those men who had lost teeth within four years due to the state of their gums.

The pancreas is an unobtrusive organ that you normally don't hear much about. It resides between the stomach and the spine and cannot be felt during a medical exam since it is located behind other organs such as the stomach, liver, spleen, gallbladder and small intestine. While the pancreas is considered part of the endocrine system in the body, it also plays a very important role in the digestive system as well. Its main two purposes are to secrete enzymes into the digestive system to help break down carbohydrates and protein, as well as to produce hormones that help maintain normal blood sugar levels.

The theory behind this seemingly odd link between gum disease and pancreatic cancer is based on the effects of systemic inflammation of the gums that is consistent with gum disease, as well as the high levels of oral bacteria in the mouth of someone who has gum disease. According to Dr. Domique Michaud, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard, people suffering from gum disease have high levels of a chemical called C-reactive protein. They believe this chemical is a biomarker that promotes cancer cells in the pancreas. Another possible link to the risk of pancreatic cancer is that people with gum disease also show a higher level of carcinogens in the mouth, which also

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