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| Say Ahh! Think Mouth, Think Health! | | | Dr Bhavneet Kaur
World Oral Health Day
is celebrated every year on 20th March as an international day to create awareness regarding the benefits of a healthy mouth and to recognize the impact of oral health on overall physical well-being of an individual. This year's theme -'Say Ahh- Think Mouth, Think Health' is a three-year campaign which has an engaging message rooted in understanding the significance of a dental visit and maintaining optimal oral health.
'Say Ahh' are the first words any dental professional tells a person to observe their oral cavity when a person sits on a dental chair. The FDI created this dental health awareness campaign to sensitize people regarding the fact that oral health and general health have a two-way relationship. Our mouth is a mirror of the body in many ways and a regular visit to a dental professional can always help in the long way. It is well documented fact that a lot of times oral health professionals are the first ones to identify the signs of other systemic diseases and refer their patients towards a medical professional for further consultation and follow up, thereby curbing the progress of the disease at its early stage.
The first and the foremost thing to understand is that oral health is much more than just focusing on a nice smile. Various signs of nutritional deficiencies, systemic diseases like diabetes, HIV etc can also be easily identified through looking at ones oral health condition. Saliva testing is now-a-days emerging as a powerful tool to identify various diseases like determining the stress response, measuring drugs intake and even diagnosing and monitoring Parkinson's disease, cirrhosis of the liver and many other infectious diseases. Awareness is thus essential to know the correlation between healthy mouth and healthy body. If you don't brush and floss regularly to keep your teeth clean, dental plaque can build up creating an environment for additional bacteria to accumulate in the space between your gums and your teeth. This multiplication of organisms can lead to infections in the mouth. Left unchecked, such inflammations of gum can often lead to more serious problems like periodontitis or acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis, also known as trench mouth. Long-term dental infections can eventually result in not only the loss of teeth but recent research suggests that more severe the oral infections in the mouth greater is the risk of developing atherosclerotic plaques in the arteries, possibly increasing your risk of a heart attack or stroke.
The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research has also estimated that as many as 18 percent of preterm, low birth weight babies born in the United States each year may be attributed to oral infections. It has been reported in the literature that the oral bacteria release toxins, which may even cross the placenta through the mother's bloodstream and interfere with the growth and development of the fetus or produce labor-triggering substances too quickly, potentially triggering premature labor and birth. So if you didn't already have enough reasons to take good care of your mouth, knowing the relationship between your oral health and your overall health can help.
The mouth is also an index to our mind. Many times people even become aware of their hidden psychological problems and even get successfully counselled for that after a dental visit, It is documented that most of the various oral habits as lip biting, finger sucking, bruxism, etc etc have a deep rooted psychological reason for that. Even a simple fracture of teeth can at times even reveal the most ugly face of social problems such as physical abuse prevalent in the society and can be brought to the concerned authorities to save an innocent life .
The mouth- body connection becomes also more significant to understand when the person is already immune-compromised. It is another well documented fact that if your immune system is weakened, for example because of a disease or cancer treatment, oral bacteria may even trigger an infection in other parts of your body. Infective endocarditis, in which oral bacteria enter your bloodstream and stick to the lining of diseased heart valves, is a common example of this phenomenon.
Medications that reduce salivary flow or disrupt the normal balance of bacteria in your mouth can further compromise the mouth's normal defenses, allowing at times multiplication of other microbes such as growth of fungal infections, commonly called oral thrush that may further impair ones overall health.
Another significant aspect between relationship of oral health to overall health is understanding that an unhealthy mouth can potentially aggravate other medical conditions as well. For example, if you are diabetic, a mouth infection can disrupt your blood-sugar levels and make your diabetes harder to control. So resolving to practice good oral hygiene every day is the key to optimal health. Every single regular visit to the dentist can act as a step forward to a healthier future. For it's not always about your teeth or gums, it's about a healthy smile inside out! So on this world oral health day don't forget to visit your dentist -'Say Ahh- Think mouth, think health!' |
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