THURSDAY, June 11, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Fasting might help improve your dental health, a new study says.

People who followed a short-term fast wound up with less inflammation associated with gum disease, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Clinical Peridontology.

“Our study suggests lifestyle modifications could be important alongside proper tooth brushing for patients,” lead researcher Dr. Giuseppe Mainas of King’s College London said in a news release.

Dentists typically focus on cleaning infected areas around a person’s teeth as a means of fighting gum disease, but researchers are exploring whether diet also might play a role.

For the new study, researchers recruited 28 patients with gum disease in Spain and randomly assigned half to a five-day fasting diet. These folks ate 1,100 calories for two days, then 750 calories for three days, before returning to their normal diet.

Patients followed this fast three times in six months, after which researchers analyzed samples of their blood and gingival crevicular fluid — liquid that comes from the small space between the tooth and gum.

Patients who fasted had reduced markers of inflammation in both their blood and gingival crevicular fluid, researchers found.

There are several reasons why fasting might benefit gum health, senior researcher Dr. Luigi Nibali, a professor of periodontology with King’s College London, said in a news release.

“Fasting reduces oxidative stress in the body, a common cause of inflammation, which can damage cells and DNA,” Nibali said in a news release. “Intake of high calorific foods and refined carbohydrates, for example in cakes and biscuits, can also cause inflammation — so restricting these foods also reduces oxidative stress in the body.

“It may also be that fasting has beneficial effects on the microbiome — the body’s community of bacteria that help to keep it healthy,” he added. “However, further research is needed to confirm this relationship.”

Mainas said that researchers hope to do a larger study, before potentially incorporating the findings into future gum disease treatment. 

“There may be patients where restricting foods can be dangerous, such as those with diabetes, so the advice will need to be targeted to specific patient groups," he said. "We are currently investigating how we could implement these benefits in high-risk groups who may not be able to fast.”

More information

The American Dental Association has more on gum disease.

SOURCE: King’s College London, news release, June 10, 2026