Oral health is a lot more important than we might have originally thought. For years, researchers have known that there was a link between gum disease and heart disease, but new research is also showing that there is a link between gum disease and mental illness, too.
To establish this connection, researchers looked at a cohort of more than 64,000 people, with a median age of 44 years old. More than 60,000 of these people had gingivitis and more than 3,000 had periodontitis. What they found was that those who suffered from gum disease were far more likely to suffer from poor cardiovascular and cardiometabolic disorders than the general population. They were also more likely to suffer from autoimmune disease and mental health disorders.
Individuals that had a diagnosis of gum disease of some sort prior to the beginning of this study were far more likely to develop chronic health issues over a three year period. The risk of mental health issues was 37 percent more likely than the risk posed to the general population.
Poor dental health or gum disease has been linked to cardiovascular and mental health issues.
The team of researchers, based out of the University of Birmingham, recently published their findings in the medical journal, BMJ Open. Hopefully, this study and others like it can continue to raise awareness about the importance of oral health and prevention.
Just like in many other areas of health, prevention is the best medicine when it comes to oral health. This is why doctors recommend that you visit a dentist every six months. Getting in the habit of this early on in life tends to correlate with better mental and cardiovascular health. Unfortunately for a lot of us, creating habits like this later in life can be a lot harder if we haven’t been consistent with oral health throughout our entire lives. Ignoring problems early on can lead to a severe reduction of quality of life as people age. While researchers are still not a hundred percent sure why poor dental health leads to these comorbidities, they believe that addressing issues early on can reduce the likelihood of having them occur.
Partnering with a care service that can help make access to appointments a little easier can be helpful when it comes to preserving health. That’s one of the big benefits that comes with a service like ours. At Paradise In-Home Care, our caregivers receive specialized training so that they can often bring the people that they care for to and from their medical appointments. This is just one of the advantages that in-home care has over other types of care. Access to community resources, like doctors and dental care, can sometimes become a lot easier to obtain.
In-home care isn’t for everyone, but we encourage you to learn more if this is something that you think might be of benefit to your family. Give us a call or spend some time looking around on our website. If you’d like, we do offer free consultations designed to answer your questions and help you find the right resources for your unique situation. Get in touch with us today to get started.
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