Think skipping your nightly dental care routine is no big deal? The results of a recent study linking gum health to inflammatory diseases like heart disease may convince you to never skip oral hygiene again. Medical science has now firmly established a link between periodontal (gum) disease and inflammation-linked conditions such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. But the mechanism linking these conditions has remained a medical mystery—until now. Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry have identified what they believe is the correlation between these conditions—blood cells called neutrophils. The new findings present the first evidence pointing to the body’s own immune system response. The controlled clinical experiment, conducted in collaboration with top dentists from Sinai Health Systems and Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, indicates that neutrophil immune cell activity is the “missing link” connecting periodontal disease with other inflammatory diseases. Their findings were published in the October 2020 Journal of Dental …