Using epigenetic clock to decipher the oral-systemic health link

The relationship between oral and general health has become of increasing interest over the past years to clinicians and researchers alike, due to its high relevance to disease prevention and treatment. However, the pathways by which these groups of diseases are linked are not well understood. Social and living conditions have been suggested to be a common pathway to both oral and systemic health conditions through triggering body responses to stress. Our proposed study aims to understand how these social factors contribute to oral and general health by assessing how they they relate to the process of biological aging which we measure using a novel method called the epigenetic clock, which measures the difference between our chronological age and the biological one expressed in our cells, by our genes.