Study: dental plaque can be fatal to nursing home residents.

Better make sure your nursing home residents brush their teeth: bad dental hygiene can lead to infected ... lungs, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Buffalo in New York. What's worse is the disease--pneumonia--can kill them.

For the study, researchers examined 49 nursing home residents who were admitted to the intensive care unit of Erie County Medical Center. Each patient required a respirator. Samples of each patient's dental plaque were taken upon admission; 28 had respiratory pathogens in their plaque and the rest did not.

Fourteen patients--10 from the pathogen group and four from the "clean" group--eventually developed respiratory infections. In nine cases, the pathogens found in their lungs matched those of their dental sample, according to the report.

Ali El-Solh, the study's lead author and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Buffalo, said it's the first time a link has been established between dental hygiene and respiratory infection.

The findings indicate that "dental plaque is a reservoir of (pneumonia-causing) respiratory pathogens," and that "nursing homes and other institutions housing frail elderly should be involved actively in improving daily oral hygiene of their residents and enhancing access to dental care," El-Solh said.