Niamh Shackleton
Experts have discussed how oral hygiene might be a gateway to diseases as they doubled down on the importance of keeping your mouth and teeth healthy.
A lot of us want nice, pearly whites for aesthetic reasons but there's many more reasons why having good oral hygiene can prove beneficial.
There was recently the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Phoenix, Arizona, where healthcare professionals came together to discuss research, policies, and health, as well as hold as many as 120 workshops for people to attend.
In one presentation, Dr Felipe Andrade, a medicine professor at Johns Hopkins University, revealed one of the links between oral health and other diseases.
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According to The Times, Dr Andrade said that the bacteria pathogens responsible for periodontitis, or serious gum disease, had been linked to the development of rheumatoid arthritis.
Elsewhere Dr Nobuhiko Kamada, from the University of Michigan’s department of internal medicine, revealed that bacteria from our mouths can affect the healthy bacteria in our guts and may lead to people being at higher risk of developing bowel disease and colorectal cancer — the same cancer that Dawson's Creek star James Van Der Beek recently died of.
While we've long been told that we should be brushing our teeth twice a day, it's now been suggested that we should be aiming for three times a day for optimal oral health.
Pre-bedtime brushing is said to be the most important, with Alpdogan Kantarci, a professor of dentistry at the University of Minnesota, encouraging people to invest in electric toothbrushes if they don't already have one.
He added that people should be brushing their tongues as well. According to Healthline, some key benefits of tongue scraping include reduced bad breath (if you do it consistently), improved senes of taste, improved overall health, and the removal of bacteria that can contribute towards tooth decay.
Speaking about the findings, Kantarci said: "We now think that maintaining your teeth in health may be associated with a reduced risk of more than 50 systemic conditions. Recent evidence suggests the oral cavity can influence health in other organs, including the joints, brain and gut."
Kantarci went on to note that gum disease doesn't directly cause the aforementioned conditions, but that persistent gum disease can affect a person's immune system and therefore make them more susceptible to other illnesses.
In regards to brain health, Kantarci said the bacteria from infected gums might be able to cross the barrier between blood and the brain. Should this happen, people could end up being more at risk of cognitive decline and dementia.