Skip to main content
Dental Procedures
FYI
Oral Health
Dentist
Blog » Oral Health

The Connection Between Oral Health and Your Overall Well-Being

Sat, Mar 16th, 2019

How does poor oral health affect health

Everyone knows that practicing good oral hygiene (like brushing and flossing your teeth twice a day and regular dentist visits) is the most important factor in maintaining good oral health. Unfortunately, most people don’t realize the tremendous impact that poor oral health can have on your body’s overall health and well-being.

In Western culture, and in the United States particularly, many people seem to be under the unfortunate misimpression that “being healthy” translates to “looking good”; I assure you, this is NOT the case. These folks will go to the gym to work out feverishly for hours on a regular basis, drink diet sodas and eat chicken instead of beef, all in an effort to be “healthy” (a.k.a. “look good”). The truth of the matter is that they are simply giving the appearance of good health.

As any medical professional will tell you, good health is anything but skin-deep. Of course, all of the healthy habits mentioned above (regular exercise, good eating habits, minimizing sugar intake, etc.) are vital to your health; however, they are, by no means, the end all be all of healthy living. Throughout my many years in private dental practice, I have come to realize that many people who appear healthy are, in all actuality, anything but. During the oral examinations we perform, we consistently see a myriad of indicators of poor health such as dental tooth decay, missing teeth and the most common one…periodontal disease or gum disease.

What Do My Teeth Have to Do with My Overall Health?

The human body is the most complex machine on planet Earth. And, as such, there are countless biological components (such as tissues, organs and organs systems) all working symbiotically to “power the human machine”, so to speak. The problem is that when any one of these components isn’t functioning properly it will, in turn, begin to negatively affect the rest of the body.

There is a mounting body of scientific evidence that poor oral health can significantly increase your risk of developing a wide array of very serious (and potentially fatal) conditions including, but certainly not limited to:

  • Diabetes
  • Heart Attacks
  • Strokes
  • Atherosclerosis
  • Pneumonia
  • Cancer (Pancreatic, Esophageal, Lung, Gallbladder, Breast, Skin and Oral, to name a few)
  • Alzheimer’s Disease
  • Osteoporosis
  • Arthritis

The links between oral health and overall health is still a relatively new area of study; and new, previously unknown, connections between the two are still being discovered. With that being said, the evidence that does exist paints a very clear picture: A Healthy Mouth = A Healthy Body.

Make sure that you’re as healthy as possible! Contact Arnold Dentistry today to make an appointment for a thorough examination of the current state of your oral health…it may just save your life! (813) 689-1529