Latest Perio Talks podcast features Iain Chapple on financial and human cost of gum disease

In a new Perio Talks podcast, now available for listening, Iain Chapple discusses the financial and human cost of gum disease, focusing on the report Time to take gum disease seriously commissioned by the EFP and published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) last year.

This ground-breaking report provided a comprehensive analysis of the financial and human cost of gum disease in six Western European countries.

In the podcast, Iain Chapple – professor of periodontology at the University of Birmingham (UK) and former EFP secretary general – tells podcast host Bruno de Carvalho how the project arose and highlights the synergies between the scientific perspective provided by periodontists and the economic models used by the EIU analysts.

He explains that one reason why gum disease may still not get the attention it deserves may be that in medical terms the mouth is considered as separate from the body as “doctors train on the rest of the body and the mouth is our domain and therefore they tend not to engage with it at all.”

As a result, mainstream public-health agencies have tended not to regard the mouth as important, although this is now changing, he says, thanks to studies on the global burden of periodontal diseases and increasing awareness on the links between periodontal disease and systemic diseases and premature death.

The half-hour Perio Talks podcast discusses the EFP’s successful collaboration with medical specialists in diabetes and heart disease, and the problems of lack of knowledge among family doctors and family dentists. Prof. Chapple explains how the recent EFP workshop with family doctors may help to address this situation by developing recommendations for general medical and dental practitioners.

He also discusses the prevention of gum disease, the importance of promoting healthy oral-hygiene techniques, and the need for governments to go beyond “short-termism” and embrace the long-term policies recommended by the EIU.

The EFP Virtual Perio Talks podcasts are hosted on Anchor.fm and are now available on Amazon Music as well as on the Spotify and Apple Podcasts platforms.

The next Perio Talks podcast, to be released during August, will feature Filippo Graziani and Reena Wadia discussing branding and social-media strategies for dental professionals.

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