Periodontitis, a gum disease, can lead to a litany of dental issues from bad breath to bleeding and lost teeth. Now, researchers at Hiroshima University have found that it could be connected to even more severe problems elsewhere in the body — the heart. In a study published on Oct. 31 in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology, the team found a significant correlation between periodontitis and fibrosis — scarring to an appendage of the heart’s left atrium that can lead to an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation — in a sample of 76 patients with cardiac disease.
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