You’d be surprised at how much your oral health affects your body’s health. While it may be easy to ignore a sore tooth, that single tooth can have a strong impact on your overall health. Next time you think about skipping a tooth-brushing session, remember these seven ways that your mouth health affects your overall health.

7 Ways Your Oral Health Affects Your Body’s Health

 

You would be surprised at how your oral health affects your body’s health.

1. Cardiovascular Health

Inflammed gums are connected to heart disease and stroke because it increases the inflammation throughout your whole body. Inflammation leads to heart disease. People who have severe gum disease have twice the risk of having a fatal heart attack than those without it.

2. Diabetes

It’s already known that those with diabetes tend to have gum disease more than those who don’t have diabetes. Now, it’s thought that severe gum disease can contribute to diabetes because it messes with blood glucose control.

Gum disease has bacteria, and that bacteria can make toxins that mess with the carbohydrate metabolism in each cell. It can also increase insulin resistance.

3. Lung Infections

Once again, gum disease and its bacteria can cause more lung infections. You are breathing in more germs in general, and more specifically germs that lead to lung infections. For those who already have lung issues, the bacteria can make it worse.

4.  Pregnancy

Pregnant women who have gum disease are more likely to develop gestational diabetes, deliver pre-term, or have a smaller baby. Checkups are even more critical if you are pregnant. Poor oral health can lead to higher risks during birth, like being early or the baby being underweight.

Babies born early can have a higher risk of developing development problems, asthma, ear infections, birth abnormalities, behavioral difficulties, and even have a higher risk of death.

5. Joint Health

When you grind your teeth nonstop, it can upset joints in your lower jaw, which can lead to pain, tightness in the joint area, earaches, and headaches. This is on top of it already slowly destroying your teeth.

6.  Smoking

You already know that smoking can lead to all kinds of cancer, but quitting can lower your risk significantly. Smoking can cause oral cancer and painful lesions in your mouth that never heal. It can also make your teeth fall out.

7. Tounge Health

A third of the bacteria on your tongue doesn’t come from any other surface in your mouth. Stuck on germs can lead to bad breath and affect your sense of taste.

Letting the germs go on for too long can make your tongue turn yellow, white, black, or even hairy looking.

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