Your Teeth and Your Health
Good oral hygiene and dental health is very important. Not only does it affect your appearance and quality of life but it also could be a case of life or death.
Missing teeth heighten heart disease risk: New Swedish study shows.
People with fewer of their own teeth run a greater risk of dying from heart disease than those carrying a full set of pearly whites, a new Swedish research report shows.
"Cardiovascular disease and in
particular coronary heart disease is closely related to the number of
teeth" that a person has left, Anders Holmlund told news agency AFP,
explaining the results of a Swedish study to be published in the Journal of
Periodontology.
"A person with fewer than 10 of their own teeth has a seven times higher
risk for death by coronary heart disease than a person of the same age and of
the same sex with more than 25 teeth left," Holmlund said.
Although many studies published in the past 15 years have shown a link between
oral health and cardiovascular disease, the Swedish study shows a direct
relationship between cardiovascular disease and the number of teeth in a person's
mouth.
The study surveyed 7,674 women and men, most suffering from periodontal
disease, for an average of 12 years, and examined the cause of death of the 629
people who died during the period.
For 299 of the subjects, the cause of death was cardiovascular disease.
The theory connecting teeth numbers and
heart disease maintains that infections in the mouth and around the teeth can
spill over to the general circulatory system and cause a low grade chronic
inflammation, which is known to be a risk factor for heart attacks and other
cardiovascular episodes.
According to Holmlund, the number of natural teeth a person had left may reflect
how much chronic inflammation one has been exposed to in a lifetime. The study
had been limited by the fact that it had not been possible to adjust the
results for socio-economic factors and to fully adjust them according to other
cardiovascular risk factors.
Heart disease is the number one killer worldwide, claiming upward of 17 million
lives every year according to the World Health Organization.
