Watch Your Mouth

Less stress and anger equals better oral hygiene. So says a team of dentists from the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health.

Their study, published in the Journal of the American Dental Association (December 2003), found that men who reported being angry and stressed out on a daily basis had a 43 percent higher risk of developing periodontitis, a severe form of gum disease, than men who reported seldom being angry.

The study included 42,523 US-based, health-professional men between the ages of 40 and 75. More than half the study participants were dentists. None of the men had gum disease at the start of the study.

The men who had at least one close friend had a 30 percent lower risk of developing periodontitis compared with those who did not have a close friend.

Men who participated in religious meetings or services had a 27 percent lower risk of developing periodontitis than men who did not.

Men with the highest anger scores were 72 percent more likely to have periodontitis than men whose anger scores were in the lowest percentile.

It's no surprise the researchers concluded that "reduced social isolation and anger expression may play an important role in maintaining oral health, as well as general health and well-being."