What is the link between oral health and heart disease?
The first thing I want to start with is actually the link between oral health and heart disease, and particularly the link between gum disease and heart disease and heart health overall. Believe it or not, actually, the chances of getting issues with your heart, with your blood system, go up a lot when your dental health is not taken care of. The infections and the inflammation from your body, from your mouth actually, can spread all throughout your body, and that's quite dangerous.
How is oral health related to diabetes?
Apart from the impact of oral health on your heart health, and the increase in heart disease from bad oral health, oral health is actually very closely related to diabetes, and gum health and diabetes have a very close link. What happens is when someone has bad gum health, when they have gum disease, or we call it periodontal disease, it makes the diabetes a lot harder to control. And because of that, what happens is when the diabetes is uncontrolled, the gum health gets worse. So it's like this vicious cycle that just gets worse and worse over time. Your gum health gets bad, your diabetes gets worse, your diabetes gets worse, your gum health gets worse, and your diabetes gets worse again. So it's actually very important to your overall body health and to the control of your diabetes that you get your gum health under control.
What is the link between oral health and pregnancy complications?
Another link that's been found is the link between bad dental health and pregnancy complications. Studies have shown that certain things, such as low birth weight, or early delivery, you know, and other complications during pregnancy can be caused by bad oral health, infections, and inflammation in the gums. And that's not something that should be risked, and so it's very important to keep your dental health in check during pregnancy.
Is there a link between oral health and cancer risk?
Current studies have actually started to show now that there's a link between oral health and cancer risk. What happens in the body is when you have gum disease or a tooth-related infection, it causes a lot of inflammation. Now the problem is the inflammation does not stay in your mouth, and unfortunately it spreads throughout your body, your heart, your brain, and the rest of your body. And this inflammation can actually damage the cells in your body and can affect the DNA in those cells that can lead to potentially cancers.
How does poor oral health affect the immune system?
There's also a link between poor oral health and the immune system. And the impact of oral infections on your overall immune system are actually quite significant because what happens is if your body is busy fighting infections in your mouth, whether it be from your teeth or gums, that's that much less immune power and immunity that you have available to fight other infections in your body because the body can only handle so much bacteria and viruses, and so you want to make sure that the body's not busy fighting those infections in your mouth so it can fight the infections elsewhere, right?