how oral health and heart disease connected
did you know that you can have a heart attack if you don't brush your teeth regularly. every february we commemorate heart health month to raise awareness about how to assess our risk of heart disease and what we do to lower that risk. everything is all good until you hear a dentist discussing heart health.
you may start wondering as i often have. what relation
could he have with that? is he trying to be a jack of all trades, actually not.
in fact, there is a direct correlation between poor dental health and an
increased risk of heart disease. has that peaked your interest.
did you know that gum disease affects overall
health of all individuals over the age of 30. yet you don't see gum disease
awareness campaigns like they are run for some of the other diseases. the
reason is that most of the people affected by it are unaware themselves that
they have it because it is often mild.
while gum disease may not necessarily cause pain it
can never the less have serious consequences for dental and cardiovascular
health. according to the american journal of medicine, those who clean their
teeth more thoroughly using plaque targeting tooth paste had lower levels of
heart attack triggering inflammation.
here are some important findings correlating bad dental
health with other ailments. there's an 81% increased chance of dying due to any
reason. there's an 85 % chance of dying from a heart attack or stroke. there's a
27 % increased chance of a serious cardiovascular event. according to the study a
heart disease patient's risk for health problems increases by around 6 % for each tooth loss.
now let's go over what gum disease also known as
periodontal disease is how it affects your heart and how to avoid and cure it
so you may live a healthy life. you might be shocked to learn that the advantages
of excellent oral hygiene extend well beyond our mouths.
indeed the state of our teeth and gums has a significant influence on our general health, medical bills and quality of life.
next we will address the relation of overall health with oral health.
the importance of oral health can be judged by the fact that it is one of the 10 major health indicators recognized by healthy people 2020 along with other indicators are access to health nutrition, HIV, heart diseases, and cancer. good oral health is also crucial for communication and interpersonal connections.
as it
impacts the way people perceive you during speaking, smiling, smelling and
eating. on the other hand poor oral health can lead to a variety of unpleasant
debilitating and expensive health problems.
according to the American dental association's
health policy institute one in every five low-income people says their mouth
and teeth are in the bad situation and one in three says their mouth
and teeth affect their ability to apply for a job. stats don't lie.
most of the
factors that influence our oral health such as food and cleanliness are under
our control. tooth decay is the most prevalent long term pediatric illness. but
it may be avoided by eating a nutritious diet and practicing proper oral
hygiene. plaque accumulation on the other hand without a healthy diet eventually
leads to cavities, gingivitis or serious gum disease.
which puts your teeth and gums as well as other parts of your body in danger. the gum disease is also called periodontal disease. the words peri and dontal imply around and tea respectively. bacteria in black that sticks to your teeth create periodontal disease. if black is not eliminated by brushing and flossing regularly it can penetrate the gums and cause infection.
inflammation
is the body's natural response to infection which is why gum inflation is one
of the first indicators of gum disease. the infection can spread causing
painful gum recession bleeding and possibly tooth loss. if gum disease bacteria
enter your circulation it can create issues throughout your body more on that
later.
warning signs of gum disease
it's
important to diagnose gum disease in the early stages. as the sooner is treated
the easier it is to recover. some of the symptoms of gum disease include red
swollen or sensitive gums, loose or separate teeth, bleeding while brushing,
flossing or eating crunchy food. persistent pal breath, sores in the mouth a
change in the way the teeth fit together when taking a bite.
if any of
these symptoms appear you should see your dentist immediately. if it is caught
early on it is still treatable and may be addressed by thorough cleaning by
your dentist. periodontitis develops when gum disease advances at this point
your dental health begins to worsen tissue bone and even teeth maybe lost
because of it.
periodontitis treatment is more difficult than gingivitis
treatment that's why you should make sure that things don't escalate this far
by developing healthy eating and cleaning habits.
gum disease and cardiovascular health the link between them
while gum disease may appear bothersome few people are
aware of the serious consequences it may have on their health. according to research
people with periodontal disease are nearly twice as likely to have heart disease.
also every year 800 000 Americans die from cardiovascular diseases.
I'm sure this
number would have been much smaller if everyone took their oral health seriously
and brushed regularly. your dentist can do much more than just look at your
teeth he can even help you maintain a healthy heart and can see indicators of
body health problems before anyone else.
now let's discuss some of the ways in which oral
health issues can migrate to other parts of the body. the bacteria that causes
gingivitis and periodontitis also migrate to blood vessels else where in the body.
causing inflammation and damage which can lead to microscopic blood clots,
heart attacks and strokes.
do you think we are exaggerating some of the oral
bacteria's remains were discovered in atherosclerotic blood arteries. far from
the mouth they should consider renaming the oral bacteria to everywhere
bacteria.
other than
the bacteria the body's immunological reaction which is inflammation sets off a
cascade of vascular damage throughout the body including the heart and brain. you
were supposed to protect us. one of the major studies on this topic was released
in 2018.
researchers examined data from almost a million patients
with around 65 000 cardiovascular events including heart attacks and discovered
that there was a modest link between tooth loss and coronary heart disease. one's
age was taken into consideration there's more the link between poor dental
health and overall health extends beyond cardiovascular disease.
periodontal
disease has been associated with rheumatoid arthritis and studies. A 2018 study
also discovered a relationship between these bacteria and the risk of
pancreatic cancer our mouths can make or break us.
important factors and cures for gum disease
before we look at the cures you should know that prevention is better than cure. some factors that can lead to gum disease include poor dental hygiene, smoking or chewing tobacco, genetics crooked difficult to clean teeth.
Pregnancy diabetes, certain drugs. few factors are managed like
dental hygiene or smoking. but others are simply
unavoidable like genetics our safest bet is to focus on the things that we can
control. brushing and flossing the teeth is vital but so are regular dental
cleanings dental clinics provide the tools necessary to thoroughly clean our
teeth and detect early symptoms of illness.
gum disease treatment
the dentist
will choose the best treatment option for you based on these verity of your
periodontal disease. it may be as simple
as professional cleaning and improving your dental hygiene practices or it
could get more complicated.
you reap what you sow if your problem has advanced
to periodontitis the most effective therapy will most likely be scaling which
cleans the spaces between your teeth and gums to eradicate the infection. patients
with severe gum disease will need to see their dentist frequently to keep the
condition from worsening. gum disease is devastating for both dental and heart
health. so don't overlook it.
we can now establish that poor dental health increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. we can't stress this enough. your dental health is the portal to the rest of your body and hence to your general health and happiness.
one of the key ways in which our teeth maintain our
general health is through this dental heart relationship. our understanding of
the link between oral health and overall health as well as how we can support
it and improve our quality of life is expanding at a faster rate than ever
before.
a healthy mouth and a regimen to maintain it that way including not smoking and having regular
dental treatment and of course brushing can help you keep your teeth longer and
keep the evils like heart diseases at bay that is only motivates you to
make oral health is high priority.