Oral health an indicator of overall health

BALTIMORE, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. dental professor says he sees the oral cavity as an indicator of overall health of the body.

Dr. Li Mao of the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore is a physician who wants to retool dental education so dentists practice more within the larger healthcare community.

Mao says in a study he led last year he found surface tissues inside the cheek could be checked to detect tobacco-induced damage in the lungs.

"We hypothesized that tobacco-induced molecular alterations in the oral epithelium are similar to those in the lungs," Mao says in statement. "This might have broader implications for using the mouth as a diagnostic indicator for general health."

Christian S. Stohler, dean of the University of Maryland Dental School, says Mao, previously a head and neck doctor at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, crosses the bridge between medicine and dentistry.