How Dental Health Improves Wellness

Oral health and overall wellness have a two-way relationship. Your overall health can affect your dental health, and your dental health can affect your overall health. This relationship is facilitated by a number of pathways, with nutrition playing a key role in many.

The Nutrition Connection

Nutrition on its own is a great example of the relationship between oral and total health. If you’re eating healthy foods and a balanced diet, chances are both you’re healthier overall with healthy teeth when compared with someone on a nutritionally-deficient diet.

In fact, poor dental hygiene can lead to tooth loss, which has been linked with poorer dietary quality as people avoid certain foods and gravitate toward more unhealthy and nutrient sparse foods. Specifically, a study from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine found that tooth loss was associated with lower intakes of fiber, vitamin B, A, C, and D, folic acid, carotene, thiamin, riboflavin, magnesium, phosphorus and iron! A variety of fruits and vegetables in a well-balanced diet can help supply these vitamins and minerals.

Chronic Conditions

This relationship doesn’t stop there, however. Dental health has a give and take relationship with lots of chronic conditions as well. Take diabetes for example. Type two diabetes often leads to poor dental health. Interestingly, inferior dental health can also affect the mechanisms behind diabetes.

Evidence has shown that dental infections prompt issues with glycemic control, a key aspect driving diabetes. Additionally, high levels of oral bacteria can elevate pro-inflammatory cytokines. This  can lead to increased lipid counts and contribute to insulin resistance.

Heart Health

On top of its connection with diabetes, your oral health can even affect your heart! Studies have shown a relationship between poor dental health and cardiovascular disease – especially coronary heart disease. In the US, cardiovascular diseases are one of the most common causes of death. Researchers from Norway found that dental health is a significant risk factor with cardiovascular mortality.

They suggest that this relationship could be caused by increased dental plaque levels due to poor dental hygiene. This can lead to higher white blood cell levels, and thus lesions on the artery walls. This is one cause of coronary heart disease.

Unfortunately, for both diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, there is a bit of a feedback loop at play. These conditions can cause poor dental health, which can lead to worsening of the condition itself.

For instance, diabetes can manifest in the mouth by causing gingivitis and bone loss. And for all of these chronic conditions, our first point around the relationship of nutrition and dental health also comes into play. If dental health deteriorates it can lead to reduced nutritional quality. As most of us already know, poor diet only exacerbates these conditions.

So what can you do?

• Keep a regular teeth cleaning routine. Make sure to brush and floss your teeth every day twice a day. Additionally, you can use fluoride mouth rinses to increase the strength of your teeth.

• Eat healthy foods and keep sugary treats to a minimum. Not only will this help you feel better overall, but it will keep your chances of cavities or other infections low.

• Work to reduce any risk of getting a chronic condition. If you already have been diagnosed with one, work to minimize its symptoms under a physician’s care.

Here at Empowered Health we recognize that the body is a whole system, and that things you might not think are linked (like teeth and the heart!) could be causing issues throughout the entire body. This integrative approach to medicine is one of a kind in the Tri-Cities.

If you’re interested in getting started with a doctor who knows the ins and outs of these sort of bodily relationships, give us a call today at (509) 392-7047. You can  schedule a free Inquiry Call with a provider, click here.