Professor Dr. Andrija Petar Bošnjak

All things micro – the role of micronutrients in periodontal treatment

There is a growing sense of importance of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) in the homeostasis and health of the human organism, but there is little data on which micronutrients are important for the oral homeostasis. This lecture will present an in-depth insight to the roles of some of the micronutrients in the oral ecosystem, but shall also discover which are the potential sources of micronutrients beneficial to the oral health. Special attention will be given to a field of dentistry and medicine that is called nutrigenomics, a growing field of research that is discovering how the polymorphism of some genes might influence the efficacy of the nutritive transport, and the enzymes that adapt the vitamins in order to optimize their use in the metabolism. Since many, if not all, micronutrients show an independent correlation to the prevalence of periodontitis, it seems they might have an important role in the prevention and treatment of the periodontal disease.

Andrija Petar Bošnjak is the Chief Dental Officer of the Adria Dental Group that unites five prestigious dental clinics in Croatia. With over 20 years of clinical experience in periodontology and implant dentistry and teaching experience in a number academic institutions in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, he graduated and obtained both his MSc and PhD degrees at the School of Dental Medicine University of Zagreb. He published over one hundred published publications, 28 of which are cited in CC and SCI. A multiple mentor of graduate, MSc and PhD theses, he regularly reviews articles for a number of scientific journals, as well as projects on an international level. Recently he completed a course in phytoaromatherapy, bringing added value to the complex task of obtaining periodontal, oral and general health of his patients.
Apart from Croatian, he is fluent in German, Italian and English and corresponds in French and Spanish as well.