How Oral Health Affects Your Overall Health

Many people are not aware of what kind of role that oral health plays in our overall health. You don’t just need to search for a cosmetic dentist near me on Google if you haven’t been keeping up with your daily habit of taking care of your teeth. Your bad teeth may be contributing to other, more serious health problems aside from just a bad smile.

Our body is interconnected in ways that we really can’t imagine. What goes on in your mouth can end up affecting your entire immune system and cause other illnesses. If you aren’t taking care of your teeth then you aren’t taking care of your health. In this article, we will go over several of the ways that this happens.

Cardiovascular disease

One of the easiest diseases to get when you have poor oral hygiene is cardiovascular disease. It seems like a stretch to imagine that your oral health would affect your heart, but they are intertwined quite a bit.



Gums have lots of small veins that are close to the surface. This is why people with gum disease often end up with a bloody toothbrush when they brush their teeth. This means that infections have a way of infecting the blood with bacteria from the gums very quickly.

Most often, the amount of bacteria is small enough that the body can fend it off. However, when your gum disease is chronic then the body will have a harder time killing off the bacteria in the blood.

This bacteria can end up causing a lot of plaque build-up in the arteries and make the heart work harder. Not only that but there is a high risk of a blood infection which is quite serious as well.

Make sure to take care of gum disease right away to avoid any infections that can easily spread throughout the body.

Diabetes

Diabetics have a harder time managing their periodontal care than others as they are more prone to coming down with gum disease. This can then lead to some serious consequences when it comes to managing their diabetes.

A blood infection can lead to uncontrolled blood sugar out of the blue and this is deadly for a diabetic that needs to have their blood sugar under complete control. Make sure to take care of the gums as well as the teeth to avoid any gum disease from forming, to begin with.

Kidney disease

Another way that bacteria from your mouth can do distant damage is shown in how kidney disease is an issue. One of the ways is that the influx of bacteria into the blood can cause a weakened immune system. This leads to frequent kidney infections. These infections weaken the kidney further and can lead to long-term kidney problems.

Rheumatoid arthritis

One problem with infections is that they cause massive inflammation in the body. This inflammation does a number on the joints. This then causes occurrences of rheumatoid arthritis that can be very painful and impact your quality of life in a big way.

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