Your mouth can, and does, say a lot about your overall health and well-being. There are significant and direct connections between your oral health and your overall health. In fact, as many as 90% of systemic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes are linked to symptoms in the mouth. Surprisingly, many of these symptoms can be detected by a dental professional even before you are aware of them.
Oral Health and Diabetes
Bleeding gums, dry mouth, fungal infections, and new decay are oral signs which can alert your dentist to a possible serious health issue — diabetes. These are also symptoms that could suggest other serious conditions, such as leukemia and HIV.
Diabetes is one of the fastest growing health concerns in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), one-third of children born after 2000 will be diagnosed with diabetes during his or her lifetime. Diabetes is also the one condition that can have a direct impact on infections in the bones and gums around the teeth.
Diabetes and your mouth have blood sugar in common. If blood sugar levels are out of control in your body because you are unaware that you have diabetes, the blood sugar levels in your mouth are also out of control. With sugar to feed on, bacteria find a receptive home in which to grow and thrive. The increased bacteria can then attack the protective enamel layer on your teeth. Over time, as the enamel breaks down, cavities develop which can be one of the dental signs of diabetes.
A person with uncontrolled diabetes has more mouth health issues to be concerned about. Uncontrolled diabetes reduces the body’s first line of defense against infection — white blood cells — which can then put a person’s oral health at risk. With bacteria teeming around the gums from high blood sugar levels, periodontal disease can develop more easily.
Because diabetes lowers a person’s resistance to infection, managing periodontal disease is not easy, but is extremely important. Your dental team should be one of your best allies if you are among the 20-plus million Americans living with diabetes.
Frequent professional oral care is important in preventing or controlling periodontal disease as well as diligent home care which requires flossing and brushing after every meal.
Your oral healthcare professionals are extremely important to your overall well-being especially if you are currently one of the more than 50-plus million Americans who is “pre-diabetic.” Your dental providers can often detect oral signs and symptoms related to pre-diabetes before confirmation of the diagnosis by blood testing and a comprehensive physical examination.
Oral Health & Heart Disease
While follow-up research is ongoing and still to be completed, initial studies from the American Heart Association have linked poor oral health with increased chances of developing heart disease, even more so than the usual suspects such as elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels. According to the American Academy of Periodontology, a group representing dental professionals who deal extensively with gum and bone health, it has been reported that of major oral diseases, pericoronitis, an infection in the gum tissue around a tooth, is the strongest predictor of coronary disease.
Further, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, it is the bacteria in your mouth, or the inflammatory response to the bacteria, that may cause inflamation of the heart and more plaque buildup in the blood vessels. Although neither your dentist nor your doctor fully understands the connection between the mouth and the heart, that connection does mean that maintaining proper gum health is very important in helping to prevent possible systemic health issues.
Questions to Ask Your Dentist
Talk to your dentist while you are in the dental chair. When it comes to your health, this is a perfect opportunity to obtain answers to some important questions which could have significant impact on your overall health such as:
How do my oral health habits — how often I brush and — affect the rest of my body, not just my gums and teeth?
What are signs to watch out for in my mouth that might indicate a systemic illness or disease?
What do you need to know about my health history to evaluate my oral health?
Have you seen any warning signs of a possible serious condition that I should relay to my primary physician?
It is a statistical fact that a member of your dental team likely sees you more often than any other healthcare provider. Because of the frequency of your visits, your dentist is often in a better position to look for and detect any early signs of oral disease that may be connected to systemic health problems.
The connection between good oral health and whole body health is one of the most important reasons to maintain a routine of regular visits to your team of dental professionals. You’ll enjoy not only a healthier smile, but a healthier body as well!