The Connection between Oral and Overall Health

You might not admit it, but your oral fitness is incredibly essential. If you are in the darkness about how your oral well-being can impact your overall health, please learn how the well-being of your mouth, teeth, and gums can affect it.

Have you ever thought about how issues in your mouth can impact your entire body? If you have not, you must learn about protecting yourself by learning more about the association between your oral and overall health.

What’s the Link between Your Oral and Overall Health?

Your mouth teems with generally harmless bacteria like other parts of your body. However, your mouth is the gateway to your digestive and respiratory tracts, and some bacteria in your oral cavity can cause disease.

Your body’s natural defenses, coupled with good oral health care like twice daily brushing and flossing, help keep the bacteria under control. However, inappropriate dental hygiene practices can increase bacteria levels, resulting in oral infections like tooth decay and gum disease.

In addition, medications like decongestants, painkillers, diuretics, antihistamines, and painkillers cause a reduction in saliva flow. Saliva helps wash and neutralize acids bacteria produce in the mouth to offer you protection against microbes that constantly multiply to result in disease.

Studies indicate oral bacteria and the inflammation linked to periodontal disease might affect the body and cause diseases like cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, respiratory disease, and cancer. In addition, some conditions like diabetes and HIV/AIDS lower the resistance of the body to infections, increasing the severity of oral health problems.

What Overall Health Conditions Have Linkage to Your Oral Health?

Your oral health contributes to several conditions, including the following:

• Endocarditis: endocarditis is an infection of your heart’s inner lining chambers of valves, typically occurring when bacteria and microorganisms from other parts of your body, like your mouth, spread through the bloodstream and attach to some parts of your heart.
• Cardiovascular Disease: some studies indicate heart illness, stroke, and clogged arteries are associated with the inflammation and infections caused by oral bacteria, although the connection is not fully understood.
• Pregnancy & Childbirth Complications: people who have gum disease, and women in particular, might face complications during childbirth delivering premature babies of low birth weight babies.
• Pneumonia: your lungs can pull some bacteria from the mouth, causing pneumonia and respiratory infections.

Likewise, some conditions of the body can affect your oral health. They are:

• Diabetes: diabetes reduces your body’s resistance to infection to put your gums at risk. Periodontal disease is typical, severe, and frequent in people with diabetes. Research indicates that people with gum disease confront a challenging time when controlling blood sugar levels. Regular periodontal care from the dentist near you helps improve diabetes control.
• HIV/AIDS: painful mucosal lesions are typical in people with HIV/AIDS.
• Osteoporosis: osteoporosis is a bone-weakening disease associated with periodontal bone and tooth loss. Some drugs helpful in treating osteoporosis carry risks of damage to the bone and jaw.
• Alzheimer’s Disease: Alzheimer’s disease progresses with worsening oral health.

Other issues linked to oral health include eating disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, immune system disorders causing dry mouth, and certain cancers. Therefore you must keep your dentist informed about any medications you take and changes in your general health, especially if you have recently been unwell or have chronic problems like diabetes.

How to Protect Your Oral Health?

Protecting your oral health is easy because you merely need to follow your local dentist’s instructions and practice excellent dental hygiene daily. To achieve your goal, you must:

• Brush twice daily for two minutes using a soft-bristled toothbrush and fluoridated toothpaste.
• Floss once daily without exceptions.
• Have a healthy diet and limit your consumption of sugary and starchy foods and drinks.
• Use mouthwash to eliminate food particles remaining after brushing and flossing.
• Avoid the use of tobacco.
• Schedule appointments with the dental care office regularly for checkups and cleanings.

In addition, please contact the dentist in Gilbert if you notice oral health problems arising. Caring for your oral health is similar to investing in your overall health.

As can be seen, neglecting your oral health will not just affect your teeth and smile but also impact your overall health, causing various conditions to need help from different medical professionals instead of dentists.

If you have anxieties about your oral health impacting your overall health, it helps if you arrange a meeting with Smiles of Gilbert to learn how to care for your teeth. The dental practice can educate you on the best practices for your dental and overall health to make you an expert in dental hygiene.