How Can Oral Hygiene Affect Your Overall Health?

How Can Oral Hygiene Affect Your Overall Health?

Since childhood, our parents make us realize the importance of keeping our teeth clean. We all know what can happen to our teeth and gums if we do not maintain our oral hygiene. Everyone knows that not brushing teeth regularly leads to plaque accumulation and makes way for bacterial attack.

However, what many people do not know is that bad oral hygiene does not only damage our teeth, but also affects our overall health.

A decade ago, dental diseases were believed to be restricted to mouth only. Although it was known that dental infections have an effect on the immune system, their relationship with diseases such as diabetes and cardiac arrest was not known. In present times, it has been established through research that dental health is directly linked with the overall health of a person. Hence when you clean your teeth, you are not only protecting your mouth, you are protecting your entire body.

Dental diseases and elevated blood sugar level: When there is an infection in the mouth, the inflammation caused due to it can directly affect the blood sugar level of the body. According to research, periodontitis can lessen the effect of insulin, a hormone that converts and stores glucose. For diabetic patients, this can lead to extremely dangerous consequences as their bodies already lack insulin. Moreover, diabetes and periodontitis have two-way relationship as high blood sugar level in turn allows bacteria to thrive. For people who do not have diabetes, dental infections and inflammation make them susceptible to it. A dentist in Diamond Bar CA would always advice periodontitis’ patients to get their blood sugar level checked prior to the treatment.

Dental hygiene and premature birth: American institute of obstetrics and gynecology to conducted a study to find link between dental diseases and premature birth. 226 pregnant women with dental diseases were taken as study participants. Of these women, some were asked to rinse their mouth twice a day with a mouthwash while the remaining women were kept in the control group. The results of the study showed, that women who rinsed their mouth had a lesser chance of giving premature birth than women who were in the control group. Hence, the study proved that there is a direct link between dental diseases and premature birth.

Loss of teeth and dementia:

A study conducted by American dental association shows that people who lose their teeth before the age of 35 are likely to develop dementia in later life. How and why these two occurrences are linked, has yet to be discovered, but the study proves that they are connected for sure. The loss of teeth can occur due to many reasons, but majority of people lose their teeth at an early age due to dental cavities and infections. Hence, maintaining dental hygiene is important to prevent teeth loss and dementia in later life.

Periodontitis and heart diseases: Almost 90% of the patients with cardiovascular diseases have periodontitis proving that these two diseases are directly linked with each other. Although the exact reason for this is not known, according some scientists, inflammation in the mouth causes the blood vessels to contract leading to high blood pressure. Whatever the reason might be, scientists have proved a direct link between dental and cardiovascular diseases.

Keeping in mind the above studies and researches, dentists in Diamond Bar always emphasize the importance of dental hygiene.