The relation of experimental diabetes to periodontal disease

Abstract

A histologic study was conducted in 121 albino rats to determine the effect of experimentally induced diabetes upon the periodontal structures. Diabetes was induced by subcutaneous injection with a 5 per cent aqueous solution of alloxan in a dosage of 200 mg./kg. body weight. Blood sugar levels were regularly determined in all the animals.

Subcutaneous injection with alloxan produced hyperglycemia, pancreatic disturbances, and symptoms comparable to those which occur in human diabetes. In twenty-five animals, no hyperglycemia or apparent diabetes followed injection with alloxan. The seventy-eight diabetic animals could be divided into an acute and a chronic group on the basis of survival beyond the initial acute stage which in forty-five cases terminated in death after an average of only 3.6 days. The experimental period in the chronic group ranged from three to thirty-two weeks.

The mandible, maxillae, tibiae, ribs, vertebrae, pancreas, and kidneys removed at the termination of the experimental period were examined microscopically.

In the periodontal structures, no notable pathologic changes were observed in the animals which succumbed after a brief acute response to alloxan or in the animals in which there was no response to injection with alloxan.

The following conclusions regarding the periodontal structures of albino rats with experimentally induced chronic diabetes were established by the findings: (1) The nature and incidence of gingival disease are not peculiarly altered in diabetes. (2) A tendency toward varying degrees of nonspecific osteoporosis of alveolar bone is a feature in individual cases of diabetes. (3) In diabetes, severe changes generalized throughout the alveolar bone are accompanied by comparable alterations in other bones of the skeletal system. (4) In individual cases of diabetes the alveolar bone may present no significant alteration. (5) In diabetes, hyperglycemia and pancreatic changes are not associated with osteoporotic bone tendencies in a specific cause and effect relationship. (6) Notable pathologic changes in the periodontal membrane or cementum are not associated with diabetes.