Dr. Sok-Ja Janet (center) with her research collaborators Dr. Srinivas Ayilavarapu (left) and Dr. Homan Javaheri (right)
Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) Research Associate Professor in the Department of General Dentistry Dr. Sok-Ja Janket and her colleagues co-authored an article titled, “Oral Infections, Metabolic Inflammation, Genetics and Cardiometabolic Diseases” which was published online on April 3, 2015 by the Journal of Dental Research. The article discusses the molecular biology of oral infections in relation to various systemic inflammatory diseases including obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease.
The article elucidates the molecular mechanisms of oral infections and how they may trigger innate immunity as well as contribute to cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs), and how metabolic inflammation modifies that relationship. The article references the “Common Soil” hypothesis, proposed by Michael Stern, MD in his publication, “Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease: The “Common Soil” Hypothesis,” which suggests that these diseases share a common genetic and environmental origin and were considered the same disease. Dr. Janket, who studied nutrition epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital before coming to GSDM, also explores the role of nutrition in innate immunity and microbial dysbiosis involved in metabolic inflammation. This novel and comprehensive work combines features of molecular immunology, clinical oral biology, and epidemiology to derive scientifically coherent conclusions, specifically in regard to the molecules and cytokines which are involved in the aforementioned metabolic processes.
Many proinflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-6, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, and IL-1β are expressed in both oral infections and metabolic inflammation. Moreover, obesity induces a spontaneous increase in serum lipopolysaccharide levels (metabolic endotoxemia) which dental researchers had thought originated from Gram negative odontopathogens. Therefore, there is a need for these confounding relationships to be reevaluated.
“I believe this review will change the future course of dental research into a more biologically based direction,” said Dr. Janket. She continued, “It was very interesting that Dr. Peter Libby, a cardiovascular immunologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, covered most of my review’s content in his keynote speech at the annual IADR/AADR meeting in Boston.”
The co-authors of this review are Assistant Professor in the Department of General Dentistry Dr. Srinivas Ayilavarapu, Homan Javaheri DMD 14, along with Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health and Sustainability at University of Massachusetts Lowell, Dr. Leland K. Ackerson, and Professor of Oral Infectious Diseases at the University of Helsinki, Dr. Jukka H. Meurman.