BACKGROUND:

It is well known that patients with diabetes have higher extent and severity of periodontitis, but the backward relationship is little investigated. The relationship between periodontitis needing dental surgery and subsequent type 2 diabetes mellitus (DMT2) in those individuals without diabetes was assessed.

METHODS:

This is a retrospective cohort study using data from the national health insurance system of Taiwan. The periodontitis cohort involved 22,299 patients, excluding those with diabetes already or those diagnosed with diabetes within 1 year from baseline. Each study participant was randomly frequency matched by age, sex, and index year with one individual from the general population without periodontitis. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to estimate the influence of periodontitis on the risk of diabetes.

RESULTS:

The mean follow-up period is 5.47 ± 3.54 years. Overall, the subsequent incidence of DMT2 was 1.24-fold higher in the periodontitis cohort than in the control cohort, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.19 (95% confidence interval = 1.10 to 1.29) after controlling for sex, age, and comorbidities.

CONCLUSIONS:

This is the largest nation-based study examining the risk of diabetes in Asian patients with periodontitis. Those patients with periodontitis needing dental surgery have increased risk of future diabetes within 2 years compared with those participants with periodontitis not requiring dental surgery.