Keeping your teeth and gums healthy can decrease Cardiovascular Disease

There are literally billions of dollars being spent on finding new cures for heart attacks, strokes and other health problems. But often the simplest most powerful routes to healing are forgotten in the economic gain oriented health care system we are in. Today we explore the simple and powerful topic of dental hygiene and how it has dramatic effects on your health. Can something a simple as keeping your mouth clean affect your health that significantly? You better believe it!

The human body has trillions of bacteria that grow in our mouth, digestive system, skin and sinuses. In normal circumstances these bacteria are ‘friendly bugs’ that play very useful roles in the body such as detoxification, immune balancing, digestion, absorption and even production of certain vitamins like vitamin K. When our diets and environments change, these friendly species of bacteria can get replaced by more toxic bacteria which are detrimental to the human body. Less commonly changes in the environment can cause these normally useful bacteria to proliferate indiscriminately and cause problems. This is so well seen in the example of the mouth. Because our diets have been shifting from a natural unprocessed diet to one high in processed refined grains and sugars, the bacterial population in the mouth changes. This change unfortunately leads to a more harmful species and generally higher bacterial levels in the mouth. In my days of working in Emergency Rooms we were most worried about human bites causing infection than any animal bite ever could.These bacteria in turn get into the blood stream when we chew or brush and release toxins which trigger the pathways of inflammation and build up of plaque in the arteries.

In 1998 a study of U.S. veterans found that dental disease was a larger risk factor for heart disease than being overweight, having a high cholesterol level, not exercising or smoking. (Click for study) Holy smokes! I hope you were sitting for this one. Think of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on cholesterol medications, blood thinners and other medications of marginal benefit in heart disease. How many times has your cardiologist told you to keep your gums and teeth healthy to keep away heart disease? To further get an idea of the magnitude of benefit we can expect from the simple act of healthy gums and teeth lets look at more data.

A study done in Scotland involved a survey of oral hygiene habits in households. Frequency of tooth brushing was studied. They then linked the data from the study to hospital admissions and looked at total cardiovascular events (angina, heart attacks, heart failure and stroke) and total deaths linked to these cardiovascular events. A total of 11,869 participants were enrolled – a large study by any measure and therefore more likely to yield true results. These participants were followed for a time period of a little more than eight years. Participants who brushed their teeth once a day had a 40 % higher risk of getting one of these cardiovascular events than those who brushed their teeth twice a day! (They also found that smoking doubled the risk.) These participants who brushed more often had lower levels of the inflammatory markers ‘C-Reactive Protein’ and ‘fibrinogen’. This documents the pathway of inflammation that is triggered by this bacterial orgy in the mouth.

But the point I am trying to emphasize is the magnitude of the benefit of clean gums and teeth. 40% is a tremendous number. In comparison let us look at the data on using statin drugs to bring down cholesterol and therefore cardiovascular events in someone who has never had a heart attack. Use of these cholesterol lowering drugs has been shown to decrease overall death rates in only one study – the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study. (link to study). (Other studies have shown no benefits). In this study you had to treat approximately 236 people with a statin drug to prevent one death (in statistics this is called number needed to treat or NNT) . In contrast if these participants were made to change dental habits from brushing once a day to twice a day – we would only need to get a 133 people to change habits to prevent one heart attack. To put it simply, changing brushing habits from once to twice a day would decrease your risk of getting heart attacks almost twice as much as would taking a cholesterol lowering drug. Furthermore these studies showed that those with the best dental health had also lower risks of diabetes.

One of the customs in India is to rinse out one’s mouth with water after every meal. This simple habit can have powerful health effects as we are now beginning to see. Here in the United States there are also other things we can do – using sugar free, all natural dental gum that contains herbs and nutrients that cut bacterial overgrowth and inflammation in the mouth is one such thing.

Xylitol is one sugar that has been shown to actually have beneficial effects and cut down tooth decay and cavities. This is because it is not a food source for the harmful pathogenic bacteria that can inhabit our mouth and has been actually shown to decrease populations of these bacteria in the mouth. Numerous other herbs have been shown to have benefit including Coenzyme Q 10, neem oil, tea tree oil, folic acid rinses and squalene. Folic acid rinses are particularly powerful but should be used only under the guidance of a health care professional.

This is just one of the many simple lifestyle choices one can make to hugely enhance health. Stay tuned as we explore other factors in the weeks to come. Tomorrow as we give thanks and enjoy a wonderful thanksgiving meal, lets remember to do one more thing – brush our teeth after we eat.

We wish you all a joyous and blessed Thanksgiving