SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research International Journal of Hypertension Volume 2011, Article ID 695719, 5 pages doi:10.4061/2011/695719 Research Article Hypertension, Periodontal Disease, and Potassium Intake in Nonsmoking, Nondrinker African Women on No Medication Masashi Yamori,1 Marina Njelekela,2 Jacob Mtabaji,3 Yukio Yamori,4 and Kazuhisa Bessho1 1 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, 54 Shogoin-Kawahara-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan 2 Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), P.O. Box 65001, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 3 Department of Physiology, Weill Bugando University College of Health Sciences, P.O. Box 1464, Mwanza, Tanzania 4 Mukogawa Women’s University Institute for World Health Development, 4-16 Edagawa-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo 663-8143, Japan Correspondence should be addressed to Masashi Yamori, yamori@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp Received 14 February 2011; Revised 5 May 2011; Accepted 15 June 2011 Academic Editor: Zafar Israili Copyright © 2011 Masashi Yamori et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the association of periodontitis and/or tooth loss with hypertension by excluding the common confounders. Eighty-one Tanzanian women who were aged 46–58 years, nonsmokers, nonalcoholic drinkers, and on no medication underwent clinical examination. Multiple-regression analysis showed that the severity of periodontitis was signiﬁcantly correlated with increased systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. Simple-regression analysis indicated that the severity of periodontitis was inversely correlated with 24-hour urinary excretion of potassium (r = −0.579, P = 0.0004) and also inversely with the frequency of intakes of green vegetables (r = −0.232, P = 0.031) and fruits (r = −0.217, P = 0.0043). Low-potassium intake in the diet mostly accompanied by low dietary ﬁber intake increases BP as well as periodontal inﬂammation. Potassium intake may be an important factor linking periodontitis and hypertension in middle- aged nonsmoking and nonalcoholic women on no medication, although chronic inﬂammation such as periodontitis may cause hypertension through a more direct mechanism. 1. Introduction Periodontitis, which aﬀects a large number of adults globally, is epidemiologically related to atherosclerotic vascular dis- eases and metabolic syndrome [1, 2]. Periodontitis as chronic inﬂammation destroys the supporting structure of the teeth and increases the level of C-reactive protein (CRP) [3– 5]. Recent attention has focused on elevated serum CRP, a marker of systemic inﬂammation, as a strong and inde- pendent risk factor or predictor of hypertension (HT) [6]. The systemic response to periodontal infection is a possible pathway underlying the observed association between peri- odontitis and increased risk for HT. Epidemiological systematic examinations about the not- ed relationship between periodontitis and vascular diseases should be conducted among healthy subjects who have never smoked [7] because smoking is regarded as a strong con- founder and may spuriously inﬂate the association between periodontitis and vascular diseases. Alcohol consumption is also one of the risk factors that can lead to the development of not only HT [8] but also periodontitis [9]. In nonsmoking menopausal Japanese women, tooth loss but not periodonti- tis was proven to be signiﬁcantly associated with an increased risk of HT [10]. Medical care is also a confounding variable that strongly aﬀects epidemiological studies in developed countries such as Japan, where epidemiological analysis on the association between vascular diseases and oral health may be complicated by the common use of certain antihy- pertensive medications that aﬀect not only blood pressure (BP) but also oral health status [11]. In order to avoid these confounders, we selected middle-aged African women on no medication, who were nonsmokers and did not consume