Good oral health is a lot more than just keeping your teeth clean and your breath smelling fresh.
In fact, failing to keep on top of it could actually be damaging your overall health, increasing your risk of developing serious health conditions including dementia or even suffering a stroke.
According to a recent study presented at the American Stroke Association International Stroke Conference 2023, adults who are genetically prone to poor oral health may be more likely to suffer a decline in brain health compared to those with healthy teeth and gums.
Research has previously linked gum disease, missing teeth and other signs of poor oral health as well as poor brushing habits and the failure to remove plaque properly to an increased stroke risk.
Additionally, poor oral health has been linked to heart disease risk, with patients found to have increase likeliness of high blood pressure.
In order to analyse the risk, researchers carried out a study between 2014 and 2021 involving around 40,000 adults. The average age of participants was 57-years-old, with the split 46 per cent men to 54 per cent women. All participants were enrolled in the UK Biobank and had no history of smoking.
The researchers screened all patients for 105 genetic variants know to predispose persons to have cavities, dentures and missing teeth later in life. This was carried out to identify whether these genetics, resulting in poor oral health, were linked to a brain health decline.
MRI scans were used to screen for poor brain health, with the images compared to those of a normal, healthy brain of a person of similar age.
The findings suggest that those who were genetically prone to poor oral health had a higher burden of silent cerebrovascular disease - which increases risk of future stoke. A total of 24 per cent of participants were found to show this link.
Forty-three per cent of those tested were found to have increased damage to the fine architecture of each brain region, representing a risk of brain decline and therefore development of neurological diseases in later life.
Study author Cyprien Rivier, M.D., M.S., a postdoctoral fellow in neurology at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, said" “Studying oral health is especially important because poor oral health happens frequently and is an easily modifiable risk factor – everyone can effectively improve their oral health with minimal time and financial investment.”
He added: “Poor oral health may cause declines in brain health, so we need to be extra careful with our oral hygiene because it has implications far beyond the mouth".
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