In a recent study in Italy, scientists aimed to look into whether kids with asthma were in any way more inclined to oral diseases than those without the condition. Though this may sound a little bit of a crazy link to make, it’s well documented that poor oral hygiene can lead to heart disease and this, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a much more obscure link. They took two groups of around 130, one group didn’t suffer from asthma at all and the other was made up solely of kids who did suffer from the condition.
The study took place over the course of several weeks and involved a form of testing know as bitewing radiography as well as more standard clinical examinations of the children’s’ mouths. Though there was a minimal increase in the likelihood of oral disease in those with asthma, it was so small a rise that no usable information could be taken from the findings.
The study showed that children with asthma were apparently just as susceptible to oral disease as those without the condition but no more so. Further testing with a much larger group of subjects will be required to discover anything particularly useful here but it’s unlikely any further study will occur as the correlation between asthma and oral disease was so poor it was almost completely non-existent.
