Oral Health and General Health Connections - An Emerging Challenge

Health is the fundamental component for quality of life. Achieving and maintaining health is an ongoing process, shaped by both the evolution of health care knowledge and practices, as well as personal strategies and organized interventions for staying healthy. In developing countries like Nepal, people do not keep oral health maintenance in their priority. However, oral diseases are one of the most common chronic diseases, and are important public health problems because of their prevalence, their impact on individuals and society, and the expense of their treatment. In some countries, oral diseases are the fourth most expensive diseases to treat. Treating caries, estimated at US$ 3, 513 per 1000 children, would exceed the total health budget for children of most lowincome countries. 1 Oral health affects people physically and psychologically and it infl uences their feelings of social well-being. In this issue Sharma et al have shown the association of serum LDL cholesterol level with periodontitis. They have found that serum LDL was higher in patients of periodontitis, meaning that there may be higher incidence of coronary artery disease and cerebrovascular disease. Recent studies have reported associations between oral infections and various systemic diseases -primarily periodontal infections and diabetes, heart disease and stroke, adverse pregnancy outcome, and osteoporosis.