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Sales-Peres SH, de Moura-Grec PG et al. J Clin Periodontol 2015; 42: 530–536

The hypothesis on which this study was based, was that there should be a reduction in periodontal disease following gastric surgery; it has been shown that bariatric surgery reduces the inflammatory response. But in this study, it was found that after bariatric surgery the periodontal condition did not improve. A possible explanation for this observation is that patients' eating habits had changed which resulted in a more favourable environment for periodontopathic bacteria. Another explanation, is that bariatric surgery could be associated with nutritional deficiencies, such as lack of vitamin D, that may be detrimental to periodontal health. In this prospective study that recruited 50 patients, among other data, BMI and periodontal measurements were recorded before, 6 months and 12 months after bariatric surgery. In addition, periodontopathic organisms were quantified in GCF using q-PCR. Twelve months after surgery, there were reductions in C-reactive protein and glucose levels, and mean BMI had reduced from 49.69 to 32.16. But the mean probing pocket depth measurements and the clinical attachment loss level had all increased, as did the relative quantification of P. gingivalis.