Submitted:
30 July 2025
Posted:
30 July 2025
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Abstract
Background: Migraine and chronic periodontitis are prevalent inflammatory disorders that may share common pathophysiological pathways. Growing evidence suggests an association between periodontal inflammation and migraine, yet large-scale population-based studies are limited.
Objective: To investigate the association between chronic periodontitis and the occurrence of migraine using a nested case-control design in a nationally representative Korean adult cohort.
Methods: This study utilized data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Health Screening cohort (2002–2019). A total of 43,359 individuals diagnosed with migraine (ICD-10: G43) were matched 1:4 by age, sex, income, and residence with 173,436 controls. Chronic periodontitis was identified using ICD-10 code K053. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), adjusting for demographic, behavioral, and clinical covariates.
Results: A significant association was observed between chronic periodontitis and migraine. Individuals with at least one diagnosis of periodontitis within one year prior to migraine onset had increased odds of migraine (adjusted OR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.08–1.13). Similar associations were observed for two diagnoses within one year (OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01–1.09) and one diagnosis within two years (OR = 1.10; 95% CI: 1.08–1.13). No association was found with three or more diagnoses in one year. Subgroup analyses confirmed consistent associations across migraine subtypes and demographic strata.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated a statistically significant association between chronic periodontitis and migraine, suggesting a potential shared inflammatory or neurovascular mechanism. Recognizing periodontal disease as a modifiable factor may offer new insights into migraine prevention and management. Further longitudinal and interventional studies are warranted to establish causality.
Keywords:
chronic periodontitis
; inflammation
; migraine
; neurovascular mechanism
; oral health
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
