Unusual linkages in biology -- unhealthy gums cause heart disease.

[mattbell]

It turns out that having unhealthy, inflamed gums dramatically increases the risk of heart disease.    Study here.

From a programmer's perspective, the body is an enormous hack.  All the components are deeply interdependent, causing weird and unusual bugs and linkages.  Given that the body was programmed by a genetic algorithm and not a skilled intelligent designer, it's not surprising.  There's probably mild selection pressure for more cleanly programmed organisms, but the common programming technique of building a better and cleaner "version 2.0" program from scratch is simply not available to evolution!

Here's how the linkage works:

Unhealthy gums have constant bacterial infections, which cause inflammation as well as an easy path for foreign bacteria to enter the bloodstream.  The constant inflammation puts stress on the body, since it's constantly fighting an infection.  This stress leads to the release of hormones that cause heart disease. 

Inerestingly, the vast majority of gum disease is caused by a single species of bacterium that eats sugar and secretes tooth-dissolving lactic acid.   Some enterprising genetic engineers have designed another bacterium that can live in our mouth and secrete a chemical that kills these bacteria.  I'm a little wary of their solution, but it serves as an example of the wide variety of creative solutions that genetic engineering affords us. 

Comments

[veleda.livejournal.com]

i've read this before.

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

inflamed gums (which are very common) also increase risk of prematurity.

yet another reason to get lots of omega-3s. People often report dramatic improvements in gum inflammation.

[yami-mcmoots.livejournal.com]

There's probably mild selection pressure for more cleanly programmed organisms

Why do you say this? I would think that natural selection favors the redundancy and adaptability of a messily programmed system. It's useful to have old DNA floating around, you might need it for something in a million years or so.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

By cleanly programmed, I mean that the various subsystems (eg the various organs) are as encapsulated and independent as they can be. If evolution cannot make an internal change to one subsystem without affecting numerous other subsystems, that feels like something that is messily programmed. Evolution on such a system would be slower because single mutations would have a broad array of consequences.

I do agree that redundancy is useful, but you can have redundancy in both cleanly and messily programmed systems. Also, I assume that if old DNA isn't used at all, it will gradually accumulate errors due to mutations. As long as a particular gene is occasionally used (say, the DNA that codes for a redundant system), it probably won't start accumulating errors.

[radiantsun.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've known the gum disease/heart disease connection for a while. Other things that are supposed to help-- coQ10 and Vitamin C-- C for the scurvy, don't need a lot, sucking on a lime will do.
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag97/oct-research97.html

LEF.org is selling a toohpaste and a mouth wash that I think I'm going to buy. If I buy 4 at a time, the discount is decent, and I'm a member. Any interest on getting some?

http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Item01279/Life-Extension-Mouthwash-with-Pomegranate.html

http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Item01278/Life-Extension-Toothpaste.html

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in trying the toothpaste. There's no sodium lauryl sulfate in it, which is good since it causes cankersores. Also, I've never seen hydrogen peroxide in toothpaste before. H202 is good for treating gum disease because it kills most bacteria.

By the way, what's your take on the LEF in general? The do seem to be a bit supplement-obsessed, but I really like the research they've put together in their disease prevention manual and their blood tests.

[chalepa-ta-kala.livejournal.com]

Neat!