Healthy Mouth, Healthy Heart

We all know that it’s important to take care of our health, but that’s often easier said than done. Health and hygiene routines are an investment of your time every day. So, wouldn’t it be great if you could accomplish more by actually doing less?

As it turns out, when it comes to oral health and heart health, you can! Taking care of one is actually taking care of the other. Count that as one less thing you have to do each day. Gwinn dentist Dr. Gwendolyn Buck explains how oral health and heart health are closely connected.

How Your Mouth Affects Your Heart

There are a number of ways that your oral health is directly related to your heart health. What we know for sure is:

  • If you have gum disease, you have an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Gum disease is a bacterial infection that causes inflammation, and it ranges in severity. Inflammation is a normal immune response in your body, but too much of it (like gum disease) is not good. Bacteria in your mouth enter your bloodstream through your gums and can cause a number of heart problems. Bacteria in your mouth can also cause your liver to overproduce certain proteins, which inflame your blood vessels.
  • Signs of gum disease include red, swollen, bleeding, and receding gums. Treating gum disease can help lower inflammation in other parts of your body. See Northern Trails Dental Care immediately if you think you have any problems with your gums.
  • If you have a lot of plaque buildup on your teeth, it can be a sign that you have similar build up in your blood vessels and arteries, which is very dangerous. A number of other diagnostic tests use samples from your mouth to look for any signs of pathogens throughout your body.
  • Heart conditions might affect how you receive dental care, so it’s important that your dentist knows your full health history. If you have any history of pacemakers, antibiotics, blood thinners, heart attacks, or stroke, tell your dentist before going into any cleaning or treatment.

The Big Picture

Dentists, medical doctors, and researchers are working hard to better understand these links between oral health and overall health. Gum disease isn’t yet proven to directly cause heart disease, but they are proven to be very closely connected and frequently happen at the same time.

Your mouth may feel far away from your heart in the whole scope of your body, but because your mouth is full of blood vessels, bacteria and germs can quickly travel from your mouth to anywhere else in the body! Seeing the dentist and taking good care of your mouth sets the foundation for good oral health and overall health.

Of course, diet is a major link between your oral health and heart health. Diets high in fat, sugar, salt, and acids will negatively affect both your mouth and your heart. So eat a balanced diet full of unprocessed foods that prevent health problems and support overall wellness.

You can protect your heart by keeping your mouth clean! The American Dental Association says that the best ways to maintain oral health are:

  • Brush your teeth twice per day
  • Floss or clean between your teeth once per day
  • Eat a balanced diet with limited snacking
  • See Dr. Buck regularly

Get Healthy!

If you’re serious about improving both your oral health and heart health, make an appointment at Northern Trails Dental Care soon. We can be your partners in total health and wellness.

The content of this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.

Sources

http://www.deardoctor.com/inside-the-magazine/issue-5/periodontal-inflammation-and-heart-disease/

http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/oral-health/conditions/heart-disease/article/how-oral-health-and-heart-disease-are-connected-0115

http://www.mouthhealthy.org/en/az-topics/h/heart-disease-and-oral-health

http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/oral-health/conditions/heart-disease/article/cardiovascular

The post Healthy Mouth, Healthy Heart appeared first on Northern Trails Dental Care.



from Northern Trails Dental Care https://northerntrailsdentalcare.com/blog/healthy-mouth-healthy-heart/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Help! My Child is Terrified of the Dentist

Image
If you’re the parent of a young child, you know their brains are similar to sponges that soak up everything around them—especially in their first five years, which neuroscientists say is when they’ll do the most learning and developing in their entire life. At this formative time, your child may amaze you with what they notice: your facial expressions, the different tones of your voice, and your habits. If your habits include regular dental visits and an excellent oral hygiene routine, they’ll notice and want to emulate you. If you happen to feel anxious about your dental visits, or you groan when you’ve got to floss and brush, they may synchronize and feel your dread. This could lead to dental fears that stick with them for years—potentially a lifetime! Kids Can Be Courageous If you’re feeling guilty right now, go ahead and put that away as it won’t serve you or your little one. Everyone has some room for improvement, and Coastal Pediatric Dentistry® is here to help show you an
Read more

Going for the Gold?

Image
On the left is the older allow, on the right the new one that my lab has chosen to use The cost of a penny weight of pure gold is currently $79.53. The cost of a penny weight of pure palladium is $130.6. It used to be that palladium was added instead of gold to the precious metals often used for pfms, but now laboratories are finding that palladium is no longer affordable. The lab that I am using has just changed the formulation of the metal it's using to one that has more gold than palladium. I really do not mind, but metals with more gold are softer and often easier for a dentist to accidentally polish off delicate margins. It is important when polishing "higher gold" formulations to exert less hand pressure when performing the final polishing of the crown's margins. Other wise there should be no problem with this change. Traditionally labs have chosen alloys with higher gold percentages for optimal esthetics, since alloys with higher concentrations of
Read more

Tongue Ties: What Parents Need to Know

Image
For a long time, people just didn’t seem to know much about tongue ties. In the early years of my practice, few of my patients had ever heard of a tongue tie. When I pointed out that they or their children might be tongue tied, I was often the very first practitioner who’d mentioned it to them. When I told them that a tongue tie might actually be the root cause of their oral myofunctional issues, or even their sleep apnea , I’m sure that some of them thought I was crazy. But in the last few years, things have changed so much! Initially, there was a small increase in the number of patients who were contacting me specifically about tongue ties. Dentists and orthodontists also began reaching out more frequently to discuss the application of myofunctional therapy exercises to tongue tie treatment. But in the last year or so, that little bit of interest has become a surge of awareness. Tongue ties and their effects on health and craniofacial development are finally becoming mainstream.
Read more