Associations between self-reported periodontal disease and nutrient intakes and nutrient-based dietary patterns in the UK Biobank.

AIM: To examine the cross-sectional associations between single nutrient intakes and posteriori nutrient-based dietary patterns and periodontal disease risk in a subset of the UK Biobank cohort. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Dietary data were collected by 24-h dietary recall on up to five separate occasions over 16 months. A touchscreen questionnaire was used to collect oral health information. Participants were considered at high risk of periodontal disease if they reported having painful gums and/or bleeding gums and/or loose teeth. Principal component analysis identified four nutrient-based dietary patterns from 20 nutrients. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio of periodontal disease risk for single nutrients and nutrient-based dietary patterns. RESULTS: A total of 9476 participants (mean age 56.2 years [SD 8.0]) were included in the analysis. Higher intakes of vitamin B6, B12, C, and E, folate, iron, potassium, magnesium, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and total sugar were associated with a lower risk of periodontal disease. Higher intake of saturated fat was associated with an increased risk. A dietary pattern characterized by high micronutrients and fibre intake was associated with low risk of periodontal disease. CONCLUSION: Within this sample of middle-aged and older adults, a "high micronutrient and fibre" dietary pattern was associated with reduced risk of periodontal disease.

The mesoporosity of microparticles spray dried from trehalose and nanoparticle hydroxyapatite depends on the ratio of nanoparticles to sugar and nanoparticle surface charge.

The ratio of hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticles (NP) to trehalose in composite microparticle (MP) vaccine vehicles by determining inter-nanoparticle space potentially influences antigen release. Mercury porosimetry and gas adsorption analysis have been used quantify this space. Larger pores are present in MPs spray dried solely from nanoparticle gel compared with MPs spray dried from nanoparticle colloid which have less inter-nanoparticle volume. This is attributed to tighter nanoparticle packing caused by citrate modification of their surface charge. The pore size distributions (PSD) for MP where the trehalose has been eliminated by combustion generally broaden and shifts to higher values with increasing initial trehalose content. Modal pore size, for gel derived MPs is comparable to modal NP width below 30% initial trehalose content and approximates to modal NP length (approximately 50 nm) at 60% initial trehalose content. For colloidally derived MPs this never exceeds the modal NP width. Pore-sizes are comparable, to surface inter-nanoparticle spacings observed by SEM.

Association between diet and periodontitis: a cross-sectional study of 10,000 NHANES participants.

BACKGROUND: Periodontitis is a major cause of tooth loss globally. Risk factors include age, smoking, and diabetes. Intake of specific nutrients has been associated with periodontitis risk but there has been little research into the influence of overall diet, potentially more relevant when formulating dietary recommendations. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to investigate potential associations between diet and periodontitis using novel statistical techniques for dietary pattern analysis. METHODS: Two 24-h dietary recalls and periodontal examination data from the cross-sectional US NHANES, 2009-2014 (n = 10,010), were used. Dietary patterns were extracted using treelet transformation, a data-driven hierarchical clustering and dimension reduction technique. Associations between each pattern [treelet component (TC)] and extent of periodontitis [proportion of sites with clinical attachment loss (CAL) ≥ 3 mm] were estimated using robust logistic quantile regression, adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, education level, smoking, BMI, and diabetes. RESULTS: Eight TCs explained 21% of the variation in diet, 1 of which (TC1) was associated with CAL extent. High TC1 scores represented a diet rich in salad, fruit, vegetables, poultry and seafood, and plain water or tea to drink. There was a substantial negative gradient in CAL extent from the lowest to the highest decile of TC1 (median proportion of sites with CAL ≥ 3 mm: decile 1 = 19.1%, decile 10 = 8.1%; OR, decile 10 compared with decile 1: 0.67; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: Most dietary patterns identified were not associated with periodontitis extent. One pattern, however, rich in salad, fruit, and vegetables and with plain water or tea to drink, was associated with lower CAL extent. Treelet transformation may be a useful approach for calculating dietary patterns in nutrition research.

The use of dual beam ESEM FIB to reveal the internal ultrastructure of hydroxyapatite nanoparticle-sugar-glass composites.

Microparticles (MP) spray dried from hydroxyapatite (HA) nanoparticle (NP) sugar suspensions are currently under development as a prolonged release vaccine vehicle. Those with a significant sugar component cannot be sectioned by ultramicrotomy as resins are excluded by the sugar. Focused ion beam (FIB) milling is the only method to prepare thin sections that enables the inspection of the MPs ultrastructure by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Several methods have been explored and we have found it is simplest to encapsulate MPs in silver dag, sandwiched between gold foils for FIB-milling to enable multiple MPs to be sectioned simultaneously. Spray dried MPs containing 80% sugar have an inter-nanoparticle separation that is comparable with NP size (approximately 50 nm). MPs spray dried with 50% sugar or no sugar are more tightly packed. Nano-porosity in the order of 10 nm exists between NPs. MPs spray dried in the absence of sugar and sectioned by ultramicrotomy or by FIB-milling have comparable nanoscale morphologies. Selected area electron diffraction (SAED) demonstrates that the HA remains (substantially) crystalline following FIB-milling.