How Poor Oral Hygiene Can Affect Your Body

Most people know that poor oral hygiene can lead to cavities, gum disease and other dental problems. However, poor oral hygiene not only affects your teeth and gums, but it also affects your overall health. Studies have shown that people who have gum disease are twice as likely to develop coronary artery disease. Bacteria present in an abscessed cavity can also enter the bloodstream and spread infection to the lungs or heart.

Type 2 diabetes has also been linked with poor dental hygiene. There was a study done in 2007 on pre-diabetic rats. The study showed that rats with periodontal disease were more likely to develop full-blown diabetes.

Pregnant women who have gum disease are more likely to give birth prematurely. In a 2011 study published in the American Journal Of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 226 pregnant women who had been diagnosed with periodontal disease were asked to use antibacterial mouthwash every day. These results of the study showed that women were 75 percent less likely to give birth prematurely!

Furthermore, gum disease can make it harder for a woman to get pregnant. There was a study that compared two groups of women who were trying to conceive. One group of women had gum disease. The women who had gum disease took an average of seven months to conceive, but the other group took five months to conceive. Researchers believed that the inflammation that resulted from gum disease made it harder for the women to get pregnant.

However, If you take good care of your teeth and gums, then you will significantly reduce your chances of developing these many ambiguous health problems.

source: http://cmr.asm.org/content/13/4/547.long