Healthy molars, common sense.
If oral hygiene is not yet important enough, brushing your teeth can help maintain your mental health – along with their dental health.
A recent study found a correlation between gum disease and dementia and other brain diseases, reports the Daily Mail. Previous studies have found that bacteria that cause gingivitis can metastasize from the mouth to the brain.
“This is the first study to show an association between the unbalanced bacterial community found under the gums and a biomarker of Alzheimer’s cerebrospinal fluid in cognitively normal older adults,” said Dr. Angela Chamber of the NYU Dental School explains. She is the author of the brain study published in Alzheimer & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring.
Previous studies have established an association between the build-up of amyloid proteins in the cerebral arteries and cognitive decline. However, researchers have yet to determine how amyloid buildup causes the disease, which they can now theorize if gum disease prevents the body from treating these converging enzymes from the brain.
Researchers have tried to prove the dental-mental well-being compound by taking both gum swabs and cerebrospinal fluid samples from 48 healthy volunteers over 65 years of age. People in this age group are at high risk for both dementia and gum disease – a warning for the infamous millennials.
They then measured their good and bad oral flora and found that individuals with more beneficial oral microbes had lower levels of amyloids. In turn, these individuals had a smaller chance of developing dementia.
“We have found that evidence for brain amyloid is associated with increased harmful and reduced beneficial bacteria,” Dr Kamer said. “Our results show the importance of the general oral microbiome – not only the role of ‘bad’ bacteria, but also ‘good’ bacteria – in modulating amyloid levels.”
The next step is to set up clinical trials to determine if brushing teeth can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
In the meantime, you can limit the levels of “cerebral plaque” by brushing teeth twice a day for two minutes a day with a soft brush, according to the American Dental Association.
This is not the first study linking oral hygiene and general health. Researchers have claimed that harmful pathogens in the mouth can increase the likelihood of everything from cancer to heart disease and even deaths due to COVID-19.