KI establishes new endowment professorship in integrative odontology
Thanks to a generous donation from businesswoman and investment company director Louise Lindh, the Department of Dental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet is able to establish a new professorial chair. This marks an important step towards making dental health a self-evident and integral part of public health, a move that both researchers and healthcare professionals have long been calling for.
“This is a major and vital initiative for the entire healthcare sector,” says Bodil Lund, professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at KI’s Department of Dental Medicine. “Oral health is essential to our general health, but has long been seen as an isolated field. We now have the chance to change this.”
The initiative is the outcome of Louise Lindh’s own experience of chronic nerve pain, the cause of which was a dental problem that remained undetected due to the lack of contact between dentistry and healthcare.
“I want to help make sure that others don’t suffer like I did,” she says. “Dental health is part of the overall health of the body and should be treated as such.”
Serious diseases are first seen in the mouth
Research reveals ever greater links between oral health and diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia and mental illness. Some diseases first present in the mouth and oral health can, in turn, affect our general health.
Despite this, there is generally little attention paid to oral health by the healthcare sector, a shortcoming that KI now intends to address.
“The healthcare sector shows an astonishing gap in knowledge,” says Anders Franco-Cereceda, professor of thoracic surgery and head of the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery at KI. “We need a shared knowledge platform that brings together dental care and healthcare in the best interests of the patient. Such a targeted research initiative in this field is therefore extremely important.”
Enables long-term research
The seven-year endowment finances not only a professorship but also doctoral studentships, technical staff and principal researchers, enabling a quick start and establishing the conditions for long-term research.
“The link between oral health and other diseases is widely unknown, and even though good oral health is attainable by everyone in Sweden today, not everyone has regular dental checkups,” says Petter Höglund, professor of Immunology and head of the Department of Medicine in Huddinge, KI. “The professorship is a strategic investment in both research and public education. It reinforces KI’s role as a leader in integrative health and is a milestone for the entire sector.”