The enamel and dentin of patients with diabetes would be more fragile, which would explain why they have more cavities and oral diseases than the rest of the population.
- Insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels.
- In France, diabetes affects men more frequently than women, except in overseas territories.
92% of diabetics have type 2 diabetes, according to theHealth Insurance. In these patients, the cells of their body have a poor use of insulin, which therefore no longer fulfills its role of regulating the level of sugar in the blood. On the other hand, for type 1 diabetes, the cause is different: it is due to an absence of insulin secretion by the pancreas. But whether it is one or the other, diabetes can be defined as a chronic disease characterized by the presence of excess sugar in the blood, which is called hyperglycemia.
The oral consequences of diabetes
Diabetes can have consequences on various organs such as the eyes, the arteries, the kidneys, the heart… but also the teeth. Indeed, according to the French Federation of Diabeticsthe most frequent lesions observed in diabetic patients are dental caries, dental plaque (a kind of sticky film on the surface of the tooth), gingivitis (inflammation of the gums) and periodontitis (inflammation deep in the gums and of the bone that supports the tooth).
enamel and dentin
In a study recently published in the journal Archives of Oral Biology, researchers explain why the teeth of people with diabetes are more sensitive than others. For this, they conducted their experiment on mice that they made sick, more precisely suffering from type 1 diabetes. In parallel, they also had a group of control rodents, which did not have this pathology.
Thus, in just 12 weeks, the enamel of diabetic mice became softer than that of the control group. And, throughout the experience, he continued to soften. Scientists observed the same phenomenon on the dentin – the layer below the tooth enamel – of diseased rodents.
“A high rate of caries formation and tooth loss”
“We have long seen high rates of cavity formation and tooth loss in diabetic patients, and we have long known that treatments such as fillings (way to restore a decayed tooth by giving it back its function and a normal shape) don’t last as long in these patients, but we weren’t sure why“, explains Mohammad Ali Saghiri, one of the authors. Thanks to this study, there is now an answer: the weak resistance and the reduced durability of the enamel and the dentin of diabetics, due to the simple fact of being affected by this pathology.
A pressing need for treatment… and research
“The population of people with diabetes is growingcontinues Mohammad Ali Saghiri. There is a pressing need for treatments that will allow patients to keep their teeth healthy, but this has not been a major area of research“until now. However, in France, nearly 4 million people were identified as diabetic by the‘Health Insurance in 2019.
