Overweight Evidence: Will dental professionals need to calculate BMI impact on perio risks?

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

As part of periodontal treatment, should dental professionals counsel obese patients to lose weight?

Main

McCauley S. RDH Magazine 2014; December 18

Increasingly the height and weight of dental patients are ascertained when taking the medical history. However, it seems that dentists, more so than patients, have some reticence integrating medical health into a dental setting (when considering screening for medical reasons, see J Public Health Dent 2012; 72: 28–35). In this RDH Magazine article, risk factors for periodontal disease such as smoking and obesity are re-visited. It is argued that these can be modified. It is stated also that patients who are obese have sub-optimal periodontal treatment outcomes. Much of the contents of this paper is Level of Evidence 5 (CEBM).