text_1: Treating gum disease reduces prostate symptoms, CWRU researchers find
text_2: This news release from Case Western Reserve University sets out to describe a relatively small study designed to further previous evidence for an observed link between gum disease and prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate). The study focuses on the likely common denominator of a body-wide biological process that releases inflammatory cytokines into blood and tissue, along with other possibilities; and on the clear possibility that non-surgical dental treatment will help. The study report in the journal Dentistry goes to some lengths to caution readers about the very shaky nature of this evidence and the fact that the study was not designed to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between periodontitis (the fancy name for inflammatory gum disease) and high PSA levels in the blood of men with prostatitis symptoms. The study authors also lay out several caveats and limitations of their study, including the small number of participants and lack of a control group. Alas, the release fails to exercise that same wise caution. It misleadingly refers to PSA reductions that were not statistically significant, and states flatly that “Treating gum disease reduced symptoms of prostate inflammation.” This overstates the value of the evidence presented in the study. Both periodontal disease and prostate disease (inflammation, tissue and tooth loss, and cancer) are widespread and have serious health consequences. Indeed, as the release and study point out, the suspected inflammatory process involved in both has also been linked to some forms of heart disease and autoimmune forms of arthritis. As a result, promoting dental care for gum disease as a means of reducing PSA levels and prostatitis (potential precursor signs of prostate cancer) poses a tantalizing means of controlling real health problems. Promoting evidence that supports the value of dental therapy in this context, however, should be accompanied by caution about the well-known debates over the meaning of high or low  PSA levels (especially in younger men and with only a single PSA test); and caution as well about the limitations of self-reported symptoms of prostatitis in a study with no control group. The authors of the study provide important context on these issues; we wish the news release had followed that lead.