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Wine Makes Your Gums Healthy (Drink Up!)
Posted by perle0 on 2006-03-10 12:24:49
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[News]
[Canada] |
 Scientists have found yet another health benefit from red wine. It helps to prevent, and reduce the damage caused by, periodontal disease.
Periodontal disease (known more colloquially as gum disease) is an infectious disease affecting the gums and bones surrounding teeth. It's very common, and can lead to tooth loss. On a more scary note, periodontal disease is also associated with heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and premature births. About 15% of adults between 21 and 50 years of age and 65% of adults over 50 are affected by this disease.
Now they've found that the polyphenols in red wine--the same things that provide the heart benefits and anti-oxident properties of red wine--also have benefits for preventing and treating periodontal disease. |
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Scientists from Université Laval (Québec, Canada), reporting today at the 35th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research, conducted a study to investigate the role of polyphenols, including those from red wine, in scavenging free radicals released by immune cells stimulated with components of bacteria causing periodontal diseases. Because free radicals are generated by immune cells during periodontitis, it is critical to keep them at low levels to maintain healthy gums. Their results indicated that red wine polyphenols significantly modulate several inflammatory components released by macrophages (a population of host immune cells) in response to bacterial stimuli. Specifically, polyphenols efficiently scavenged and inhibited free-radical generation by host immune cells by controlling intracellular proteins involved in their release. These anti-oxidant properties of red wine polyphenols could be useful in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory periodontal diseases as well as other disorders involving free radicals. |
More details. |
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