Periodontitis and myocardial hypertrophy

There is a deep relationship between cardiovascular disease and periodontitis. It has been reported that myocardial hypertrophy may be affected by periodontitis in clinical settings. Although these clinical observations had some study limitations, they strongly suggest a direct association between severity of periodontitis and left ventricular hypertrophy. However, the detailed mechanisms between myocardial hypertrophy and periodontitis have not yet been elucidated. Recently, we demonstrated that periodontal bacteria infection is closely related to myocardial hypertrophy. In murine transverse aortic constriction models, a periodontal pathogen, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans markedly enhanced cardiac hypertrophy with matrix metalloproteinase-2 activation, while another pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis (P.g.) did not accelerate these pathological changes. In the isoproterenol-induced myocardial hypertrophy model, P.g. induced myocardial hypertrophy through Toll-like receptor-2 signaling. From our results and other reports, regulation of chronic inflammation induced by periodontitis may have a key role in the treatment of myocardial hypertrophy. In this article, we review the pathophysiological mechanism between myocardial hypertrophy and periodontitis.