I know this is a little late, but I talked to a dentist about this article because I was wondering how inflammation in the mouth was related to strokes and it is quite surprising how the health of a person's teeth can affect his or her overall health! Periodontal disease is a bacterial infection that can attack the gums and bone that hold teeth in place. The periodontitis that is associated with the disease causes the inflammation. This is the inflammation of the bone tissue. When you have periodontal disease, the decay (bad bacteria that is to say) can infect the gums and form spaces or gaps around the teeth that are called pockets. The decay can be so deep that it builds BELOW the gum line. The only thing that can help in reversing this is your dentist and a procedure known as scaling (removing plaque, tarter, and stains from around the surface of the tooth) and root planing (removing the bacteria from below the gum line and on the roots and promote healing). If left untreated, this bad bacteria can enter the bloodstream because there is blood supply at the bottom of the tooth that meets with bigger vessels. As a consequence, this bacteria can circulate throughout your body. Gross! This bacteria has been found to be the same bacteria responsible for plaques that can cause heart attack and stroke. He also told me as a side note that there were studies done in a hospital setting that people who didn't clean their tongues vs. those who did (you get rid of the bacteria responsible for bad things in the mouth), had a higher risk of pneumonia. It's therefore amazing how important it is to take care of your teeth and gums because it can be linked to problems in the rest of the body.
Sources: A Dental Professional (a DDS in practice for over 20 years) and a pamphlet about periodontal disease ("The most intrusive guests your mouth will ever meet").
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Nice post, bvem! I thought the connection between periodontal disease and vascular problems was well established, but just this week (6 October) the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force published a review of "non-traditional risk factors" for CHD (coronary heart disease) in Annals of Internal Medicine, finding:
ReplyDelete"Systematic reviews were conducted of literature since 1996 on 9 proposed nontraditional markers of risk: high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, ankle-brachial index, leukocyte count, fasting blood glucose, periodontal disease, carotid intima-media thickness, coronary artery calcification score on electron-beam computed tomography, homocysteine, and lipoprotein(a). The reviews followed a hierarchical approach aimed at determining which factors could practically and definitively reassign persons assessed as intermediate-risk according to their Framingham score to either a high-risk or low-risk strata, and thereby improve outcomes by means of aggressive risk-factor modification in those newly assigned to the high-risk stratum. RECOMMENDATION: The USPSTF concludes that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of using the nontraditional risk factors studied to screen asymptomatic men and women with no history of CHD to prevent CHD events.
My dentist told me that flossing can add up to 4 years to your life! I always thought he was just trying to get me to floss more, but I guess the science would probably back him up.
ReplyDeleteI just recently went to a talk on the University of Colorado campus, where the dentist stated, that this is widely accepted in the medical community now, but in Chinese medicine they have thought or a long time that the tongue and heart was connected and therefore disease in one affected the other. Recent literature is also suggesting the oral disease is linked to many systemic infections and prenatal and further neonatal health!
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