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Research Aims to Alleviate Gum Disease in Diabetics |
| By
Rebecca Maggard |
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Jun 13, 2003 |
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| Dr. Marcia McInerney |
“Diabetics are at an increased risk to develop severe periodontitis,” said Dr. Marcia McInerney, UT associate professor and interim chair of medicinal and biological chemistry in the College of Pharmacy. “The problem is that there is an overgrowth of bacteria leading to gum disease in mouths of diabetics due to an oral environment containing high levels of glucose.”
McInerney recently received a $142,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study innate immune responses of diabetics to oral pathogens. She was one of 13 researchers nationwide to be awarded an exploratory/development grant from NIH.
She has been studying type 1 diabetes for nearly 20 years and hopes to uncover the role natural immunity plays in the body’s immune responses against periodontal infection in people with the disease.
As part of her research, McInerney will study mouse models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. She will compare natural immune responses to oral pathogens in the pre-diabetic and diabetic state. “By looking at immune system responses to oral bacteria in pre-diabetic and diabetic mice, we will hopefully be able to determine if the immune system is abnormal when it’s in a diabetic state,” McInerney explained.
According to McInerney, her preliminary findings are showing an increase of inflammatory molecules, which lead to activated cells and a decrease in regulatory molecules in response to oral pathogens in the diabetic state compared to the non-diabetic state. This chronic inflammatory response can lead to tissue destruction and further invasiveness of oral bacteria leading to periodontitis.
“The key will be to determine how to regulate the immune system in diabetes so that oral bacterial growth can be controlled without spilling over into a chronic response that leads to tissue damage,” McInerney said.
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