Effects of Periodotnal Treatment on Adipokine Levels in Non-Smokers

Objectives:  

Obesity is known to be a leading cause for Type 2 diabetes.  Diabetes is known to be a contributing factor in periodontal disease.  However, the connection between obesity and periodontal disease remains unclear.  This study focused on examining a connection between obesity and the response of subjects to periodontal treatment.

Methods:  

Obese (non-diabetic) and normal weigh subjects with periodontal disease were examined for bleeding on probing (BOP), clinical attachment loss (CAL) and probing depth (PD), before and after non-surgical periodontal treatment.  Blood and saliva samples from subjects were compared for cytokine and adipokine expression via Bioplex.

Results:

Obese (non-diabetic) subjects display comparable levels of BOP, CAL and PD to normal weight subjects, and displayed comparable improvement following periodontal treatment.  There was no significant difference between obese and normal weight subjects for insulin, glucagon, IL-6, TNFα, C-reactive peptide, PAI or visfatin, either before or after treatment.  In general, most cytokines were not detectable within saliva, unlike serum.  Unlike most cytokines, visfatin was more abundant in saliva than in serum.  In addition, IL-6 levels were the only cytokine more prevalent in obese saliva than in the saliva of normal weight subjects.  In addition, salivary IL-6 levels were the only cytokine to display decreased expression following periodontal treatment.

Conclusions: Obesity did not correlate with reduced response to periodontal therapy compared to normal weight individuals.  In addition, most cytokines detectable in serum were undetectable in saliva, calling into question the usefulness of salivary diagnostics in examining cytokine levels in subjects with periodontal disease.