A new study in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology has confirmed an association between chronic periodontitis (CP) and erectile dysfunction (ED).
Using a nationwide, population-based dataset with a retrospective case-control design, researchers from Taipei Medical University and Far Eastern Memorial Hospital identified 32,856 patients with ED as cases and randomly selected 162,480 patients as controls (JCP, March 19, 2012).
Of the sampled patients, 24,294 (12.3%) had been diagnosed with CP prior to the index date; this included 8,825 cases (26.9% of the patients with ED) and 15,469 controls (9.4% of the comparison cohort). After adjusting for patient monthly income, age, geographic location, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, coronary heart disease, obesity, and alcohol abuse/alcohol dependence syndrome, the researchers found that patients with ED were more likely to have been diagnosed with CP prior to the index date than controls (p< 0.001).
A study published last year in the Journal of Periodontology also pointed to a link between ED and CP.
