Don’t Let Your Oral Health Get Out Of Control
While most people think of oral health as mostly related to the mouth, you would be surprised by how much your oral health impacts your entire body. Medical science is discovering everyday that the condition of a persons teeth and gums can cause other problems in the body and specifically heart disease. If you take care of your mouth, it will resonate with the rest of your body and you will feel the good (or bad) effects all throughout.
Watching what we eat can help both your mouth, as well as your blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Diets that are high in sugar are those that contribute to packing on the calories in your body, as well as give the bacteria in your mouth a good breeding ground. Sugar feeds bacteria and fungus in the body. This can lead to gum disease or what is called periodontal disease. Periodontal disease has been linked directly to heart disease.
Can Diet Help My Oral Health
Fruits and vegetables can give you a good dose of vitamins, nutrients, and fiber in your diet; but they are also good for your dental health as well. For instance, raw, crunchy fruits and vegetables act as natural abrasives to clean the surface and crannies of your teeth – leaving you with less build-up and less dullness.
Avoiding smoking also helps your overall health, as well as you oral health. When you avoid smoking, you avoid exposing your lungs and other organs to thousands of toxic compounds such as carbon monoxide, tar, and ammonia. So not only do you save your vital organs, but you save your teeth and gums too.
Lessening alcohol consumption can also help promote good oral hygiene. Drinking alcohol helps dehydrate the mouth, which makes it more conducive to bacterial growth. Again, by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, you can save your teeth in addition to your liver.
So by paying special attention to your oral health, you can boost your overall health. In other words, aiming to have a healthy mouth can result in a healthy body overall – and vice versa.
So What About Those Energy Drinks?
There is a lot of controversy about energy drinks. There seems to be a new type and brand coming out all the time and people are consuming them in large quantities. If you just look around, you will see several with one in their hand all the time.
When it comes to your oral health, energy drinks are really not a good idea. Why? One reason is because of the acid in the energy drinks. The acid in these drinks are very destructive to the tooth’s enamel and can increase the likelihood of you having decay set in. It’s just not worth the risk.
You have probably heard the old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In this case it is. Most people want to stay out of the dentist office so using a little common sense can help you avoid unnecessary expense in the future.
Keeping Your Dental Appointments
A cleaning is a lot cheaper than a dental implant. If you don’t take care of youroral health, it will lead to gum disease, decay and missing teeth. All of which can ad up to higher dental bills.
Coming in for a cleaning and check-up every 6 months will keep your oral health in tip-top condition. When you do keep your appointments for cleanings, if something is wrong or develops, we most likely can catch it early enough before it becomes a big problem.
If you haven’t had a check-up or cleaning in a while, give us a call and let’s have a look to make sure things are good shape.