Your dental hygiene represents one of the most important aspects of taking care of your overall health, as our bodies can be healed or harmed by the stuff that we ingest through our mouth.
Of course, there are other ways in which we can inject ourselves with the various matter, so to speak, but eating it, drinking it, or smoking it seems to be the most common ones – hence the connection between taking stuff in and oral health.
Now, the thing is, the state of our mouth does not only directly correspond to what we just ate and drunk two minutes ago, but it can also suggest how well your body’s faring in other ways, as well. Indeed, many diseases will display telltale signs in connection to your mouth in some way, so the state of your oral health can be used to determine if you have a certain illness or not.
In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of oral hygiene, how different diseases are connected to the state of your mouth, as well as how saliva can be used as a diagnostic tool.
Right then folks, without further ado, here’s the deal.
Your Mouth as an Indicator of an Infection
According to the Academy of General Dentistry, the state of your mouth can indicate the signs of up to 90% of diseases, so keeping track of what goes on in your mind can be an excellent way of being in the know about what malady’s out to get you, so to speak.
In general, the sort of signs you need to pay attention to vary from mouth ulcers, sore throat occurrences, sore throats, and then also reduced saliva production, dodgy fungi in the saliva (as with candida cases), as well as dry mouth.
While most of these symptoms can appear randomly and unrelated to any disease, in particular, it pays off being vigilant, so you can understand what on Earth is going on and how can you tackle it if it is happening.
This is why regular dental check-ups and controls should be done. If you aren’t like Bob Mortimer, who does his own dentistry, and happen to live in Australia, you can get the help of a fully-qualified Central Coast dentist, who will be able to fix your problem thoroughly and professionally. In case you have a problem in the first place.
Saliva as a Diagnostic Tool
As simple and inconsequential as it seems, saliva is actually one of the best diagnostic tools for determining what sort of ailment, or lack thereof, you have going on in your body.
For example, there’s a test for candida we mentioned above, which you can do yourself. All you need to do is spit in a glass of water (make sure the glass is see-through), and then look for little ‘tails’ below the surface. If these start forming and dragging down towards the bottom of the glass, it means you have a yeast overgrowth problem.
Also, saliva can be sent in a laboratory and be used to test for a myriad of diseases and conditions. Your cortisol levels, certain hormone imbalances indicating an HIV infection, as well as routine substance abuse check-ups they use in police reports, for example, are only a couple of instances where saliva can be used to determine what’s wrong with you.
Conditions Linked to Oral Health
Endocarditis – It’s not only your teeth and gums that can decay due to a lack of proper dental hygiene. In fact, a mouth that’s not taken care of properly and daily can even cause you heart problems. Endocarditis, for example, is a heart disease that is caused by bacteria spreading from elsewhere in your body toward the heart where it accumulates and creates problems.
These germs and bacteria are carried over through blood and often originate in the mouth from whence they spread further.
Pneumonia – Bacteria commonly found in your mouth can cause diseases as serious and consequential as pneumonia. The pathway for bacteria that originate and fester in the mouth is opened up through inhalation, so what originated in the mouth can easily end up in the lungs, where it can spread and cause an infection.
Pregnancy complications – Although this link has not yet been investigated thoroughly, some research indicates that there is a connection between periodontitis and premature birth and other birth-related complications.
All things considered, taking care of your dental hygiene is not just a matter of choice and an occasional bout of cleanliness. You should take it seriously and pursue it daily so that you can prevent complications, and other potential problems down the road.
