
F. Agha-Hosseini et al. / Health 3 (2011) 258-262
Copyright © 2011 SciRes. Openly accessible at http://www.scirp.org/journal/HEALTH/
261261
estrogen and progesterone) play a great role in the de-
velopment of some forms of gingival or periodontal dis-
ease [20]. Clinical reports of gingival enlargement con-
current with the onset of puberty and during pregnancy,
or gingival atrophy and surface desquamation during
menopause, have led some investigators to regard the
gingival as a secondary target organ for the direct action
of female sex hormones [9]. Also, human gingiva has
been showed to metabolize estrogens [21].
Consistent with our previous studies on stimulated
whole salivary 17β-estradiol [5], and serum and saliva
progesterone [22] the results showed that subjects with
OD had significantly lower serum 17β-estradiol concen-
tration in menopausal women with OD feeling compared
with the control group. In addition, a negative correla-
tion between serum 17β-estradiol level and severity of
OD in menopausal women was also observed. Therefore,
it is possible that there is a relationship between serum
17β-estradiol level and OD feeling in menopausal
women.
We also found that unstimulated, but not stimulated
whole saliva flow rate, was significantly lower in meno-
pausal women with OD feeling, in comparison with
women without OD feeling, which was consistent with
our previous studies [5,6,22,23]. It can be concluded that
menopausal women with OD feeling suffer from re-
duced salivary flow rate in unstimulated conditions.
However, it may alleviate in a stimulated state.
Our research had not planned for day-to-day collec-
tion of serum sample, because we anticipated and ex-
perienced resistance from the study participants espe-
cially in the control group, so we took only one sample.
There were other limitations to this study, e.g., this was a
cross-sectional study and longitudinal studies may find
similar or different results.
5. CONCLUSIONS
It seems that there is a slight negative correlation be-
tween OD feeling severity and serum 17β-estradiol in
menopausal women.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Research conducted with Grant from Tehran University of Medical
Sciences, Tehran, Iran. The authors declare that there is no conflict of
interests.
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