association between anxiety, obesity and periodontal disease in smokers and non smokers: a cross sectional study.

background and aim: psychological stress is considered to be an important risk factor for many inflammatory conditions including periodontal disease. a few studies have addressed the relationship between obesity and periodontal disease. so this cross sectional study was aimed to investigate relationship of psychological stress, obesity and periodontal disease in smokers and non smokers. materials and methods: the study population included 90 patients, equally divided into three groups of non smokers periodontally healthy, non smokers and smokers with untreated moderate to severe chronic periodontitis. socioeconomic data, psychosocial measurements, physical parameters and clinical findings of ppd, cal, pi & gi were recorded. results: the clinical parameters were assessed for three groups in three different anxiety levels of mild, moderate and severe. intragroup comparison of ppd and cal in the three anxiety levels showed increased periodontal destruction with an increase in anxiety levels, the results being statistically highly significant for ppd differences in smoker group. (p<0.0001) the mean difference of ppd and cal in severe anxiety levels between smokers and non smokers was 0.68 mm and 0.70 mm and both the findings were statistically significant. the mean ppd and cal in smoker and non smoker groups in obese patients was higher as compared to non obese patients and the differences were statistically highly significant. (p<0.001) conclusion: the results of our study indicate a positive and strong association between anxiety, obesity and periodontal disease in smokers and non smokers. smoking appears to further attenuate this association.