CHAPEL HILL - Growing awareness of important links between inflamed gums and other mouth tissues and such life-threatening conditions as heart disease and stroke has led the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and several private companies to award $12.7 million to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers.
UNC-CH School of Dentistry experts on those links and their colleagues will use the money to establish a new Comprehensive Center for Inflammatory Disorders and conduct numerous studies and educational activities. The support, coupled with funds already awarded to investigators at the dental school in this area, brings total support for the center to $21 million.
No grant as large has ever been given by the federal institute nor received by the school of dentistry.
"Our new project is being designed chiefly to look at the basic processes of inflammation and the relationship of these processes to oral inflammation, such as gum disease and systemic medical conditions," said Dr. Patrick Flood, associate professor of periodontology and associate dean for research. "The main focus will be to understand the underlying mechanisms of all types of inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, gum disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even the birth of pre-term and low-birth-weight babies."
Inflammation is the normally protective -- but sometimes destructive -- immune system response that occurs when the body perceives a real threat, such as infectious microorganisms, or a threat that apparently does not exist, he said. Arthritis may be an example and result of the latter.
Flood, also associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the UNC-CH School of Medicine, will serve as principal investigator for the five-year project. Dr. James D. Beck, Kenan professor of dental ecology, will be co-director and co-principal investigator.
"This will be a multi-faceted, laboratory bench-top-to-bedside approach to understanding similarities and differences between inflammatory conditions and how we can use the similarities to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients," Flood said. "As part of our education efforts, we'll also go out into the community to work sites, for example, to teach people about how better oral health leads to better health generally by helping prevent cardiovascular disease and other disorders."
UNC-CH is the national leader in identifying the connection between chronic gum disease and more debilitating conditions, he said.
"Among the public and even medical professions, it's only starting to come out that some oral conditions can have systemic consequences for more serious disorders," the researcher said. "For example, we now know that gum disease is almost as great a risk factor for premature labor and delivery as is smoking. Most ob-gyn physicians probably underestimate the importance of good oral hygiene in making sure pregnant women go to term and give birth to healthy children."
A UNC-CH study published in the Journal of Periodontology in 1996 showed that women who suffered severe gum disease were seven times more likely to deliver low-birth-weight babies prematurely. Another UNC-CH project demonstrated that periodontitis is a significant independent factor associated with heart disease. Still another, published in the Lancet in May, showed that inflammation plays an undefined but central role in causing Type 2 diabetes.
Thirty-three researchers will be involved in the new center, including faculty from the UNC-CH schools of dentistry, medicine, pharmacy and public health, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Thurston Arthritis Center, the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Duke University.
The main UNC-CH participants are Drs. Lewis H. Romer, Kenneth A. Jacobson, Keith W.T. Burridge, Michael Schaller, Albert S. Baldwin, Stephen Haskill, Steven Offenbacher, Ray Williams, Ron Strauss, Gary Slade, Sergei S. Makarov, Roland M. Tish, Glenn Matsushima, Timothy C. Nichols, David W. Paquette, Kathleen C. Light, William Maixner, John Winfield, Alan Cross, James S. Pankow and John R. Elter. The Duke participant will be Dr. Richard Auten, an obstetrician-gynecologist.
Patients being studied during various treatments will be seen in clinical research units at both the schools of dentistry and medicine, Flood said.
The chief corporate sponsor, which will provide over $300,000 to the center yearly, is the Sunstar Corp. of Japan. Other corporate sponsors are Optiva and OraPharma Inc.
Potential benefits to come from the new center's work are significant, Flood said.
"If periodontal disease is as important a contributor to the premature birth of low birth weight children as we predict, then elimination of periodontal infections among pregnant women in this country has the potential to reduce the incidence of premature, low birth weight deliveries by 18.2 percent," he said. "This would save almost 32,000 lives a year and a billion dollars in intensive-care unit costs."
Note: Flood can be reached at (919) 966-1538, Beck at 966-2787.
School of Dentistry contact: Alice Lockhart, 966-4563.
News Services contact: David Williamson, 962-8596.