Association between Periodontitis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease- Review of Current Literature on the Biologic Plausibility

Periodontitis, a chronic inflammatory disease of the supporting tissues of teeth, is etiologically associated with a subset of pathogenic organisms that thrive in the anoxic niche provided by the diseased periodontal pockets. These anaerobic gram-negative organisms resident in plaque biofilm and causing an overwhelming chronic inflammatory response in periodontal tissues have also been associated with other systemic chronic inflammatory diseases like cardiovascular, renal, and adverse pregnancy outcomes as per literature being published for the past twenty years or more. This paper aims to provide an overview on the biological plausibility of a strong association between systemic seeding of pathogenic oral bacteria and chronic bowel diseases like Inflammatory Bowel Diseases by reviewing recent literature from open-source journals on the same topic. Knowledge of the association between oral bacteria and gut inflammatory diseases will help in broadening the preventive and therapeutic options available currently by suggesting measures to suppress the systemic hyper-immune response.