Negin Soghli
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a systemic disorder identified with glucose intolerance, which is first diagnosed during gestation. The aim of the present study is to investigate the potential association between GDM and periodontitis. Despite a higher incidence of periodontitis among the individuals of the GDM group, the association between GDM and periodontitis was not statistically significant. Periodontitis is a common chronic inflammatory disease destroying tooth-supporting tissues called periodontium. It is caused as a result of polymicrobial plaque accumulation (1). It is considered as the sixth most prevalent disease worldwide (2). GDM is a hyperglycemic status defined as glucose intolerance, which is first diagnosed during pregnancy (3). This disease is a multifactorial condition and is associated with other systemic inflammations. Among large number of studies on periodontitis and GDM, some suggested more frequency of periodontitis among women having GDM (4,5). However, other studies indicated that there is no association between periodontitis and GDM (6). As a result of these controversial findings, this paper aims to investigate whether there is an association between these two diseases.