Invasive dental procedures, such as some treatments for gum
disease, may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke,
according to a new study. Medicare patients who had had a heart
attack or stroke over a five-year period were 1.5 times more
likely to suffer one of these cardiovascular events in the four
weeks after an invasive dental treatment than they were at any
other time. However, the researchers point out this effect,
although real, is quite small and brief. "It very quickly
settled back down to their ordinary risk again, so that looking
over years, the effect would be very small indeed," said study
researcher Liam Smeeth of the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom. Previous studies have
linked periodontal disease, which is a chronic bacterial
infection of the gums, with an increase in inflammation in the
body. Inflammation is an immune response and can be beneficial
when your body is fighting off infection, but chronically high
levels are known to play a role in healt