Connecting the Dots Between Oral Health & Whole-Body Health Your mouth is one of the most important parts of your body since it has co...
Connecting the Dots Between Oral
Health & Whole-Body Health
1. Gum Disease
The gums in your mouth are an integral part of
your body's defense against outside contaminants, and if you want to prioritize
your oral health,
you’ll need to look after your gums as much as you do your teeth. There are
many causes of gums getting inflamed or even wounded, and these range from
things as simple as a cut from food to a cavity that has descended all the way
down. The unfortunate consequence of gum disease and inflammation is that the
rest of your body may suffer as a result, since the gums have a rich blood
supply, and this same blood travels through the rest of your body and organs.
This means that the germs that get in through cuts in your gums will slip
through the bloodstream and gain access to other parts of your body.
2. Inflammation
Inflammation is another important thing to
watch out for when it comes to dental health, since the roof of your mouth,
your tongue, the base of your mouth, and your gums can all get inflamed through
a wide array of potential causes, the most common of which is improper brushing
or flossing of your teeth. The inflammation present in your oral cavity has a
higher risk of becoming chronic, especially if the cause is you brushing too
roughly over a long period, and this chronic inflammation could have severe consequences
on the rest of your body, including a weakened immune system and systemic
diseases that spread all across the body.
3. Relation of the Mouth to the
Lungs
It's probably not a shock to many of you that the mouth is closely related to the lungs, as when you're not breathing, your epiglottis is open, allowing air you breathe in through the mouth to travel through your pharynx and into the trachea, which is the beginning of your lungs. If you have poor oral hygiene or any other dental issues, a major consequence will be bacteria getting into your mouth, which can easily get transferred to your lungs through the aforementioned pathway air takes if there’s enough bacteria present, which commonly causes pneumonia.
4. Effect on Nutrition
Nutrition is perhaps the most important aspect affecting health throughout the world, and your dental hygiene and care is a core component of maintaining proper nutrition. Food gets chewed in your mouth, and if you're unable to chew, the food you swallow won't have a large enough surface area to get absorbed in time in your digestive system, which will cause a lot of nutrients to get wasted without you really understanding what the cost of your malnutrition is. Saliva also contains an enzyme called amylase which breaks down starch into sugar, and poor health could cause blockage of salivary ducts, reducing the rate of the digestion of starch.
5. Systemic Diseases that Present
in the Mouth
Though you’ve already read about diseases that
begin in the mouth and spread to the rest of the body, it’s important to
realize that there are many systemic diseases that show their initial symptoms
in the mouth in some shape or form. For example, diabetic patients are more
likely to get gum disease, which is why, if you’re having problems with your
gums, it may be due to a poor diet if you’re diabetic, while other things like
teeth falling off in old age are largely due to osteoporosis all over the body.
Conclusion
As the first opening that food and water have to the rest of the body, your mouth is likely the key to the rest of your body staying healthy and being in prime condition. Whether it's chewing and swallowing, breathing, or preventing infections, the mouth does it all, and it needs to be cared for properly so that it can do its job well. Using the information in this article, you'll be able to get healthier than ever by focusing on how much dental health you have, leaving you better equipped for the future.
