Gum health a key to overall health
Gum health can affect a person’s overall health, however they are all but ignored by doctors conducting health checks.
Periodontitis is a disease of the gums where pockets form between the tooth and the gum, and bacteria living in these pockets, lead to collections of pus. The bacteria can eat away the bone of the gum, threatening the life of the tooth.
Periodontitis is not just a local disease – it can affect parts of the body way beyond the mouth. Treatment of gum disease in patients who were scheduled for heart transplant surgery, can halve the failure rate. It is believed that this was related to the patients having a collection of pus near the roots of the teeth, which could infect the transplanted organ, making it fail. Removing the pus improved the success rate of the transplant operations.
Infected gums can negatively affect the linings of the arteries throughout the bodies, thereby setting the patient up for later cardiovascular disease.
Periodontitis is also associated with preeclampsia, a life-threatening disease of pregnant women in which the blood pressure rises catastrophically. It’s also associated with diabetes, osteoporosis, some cancers, stroke, and so on. So treating gum disease should reduce other medical conditions, and costs, later in life.
Unfortunately, despite these strong medical links, dental care is not covered by Medicare.
