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Brush your teeth three times a day to improve mental health

2023-02-15T10:44:17.773Z


New studies link inflammation in the mouth with diseases such as diabetes, depression or strokes "When you talk to the doctors, and they explain what they study in the Medicine career, they tell you that the digestive system for them begins once the mouth has finished." Elena Figuero, professor of dentistry at the Complutense University of Madrid, says that the separation of dental health from the rest of medicine begins at the university, a mistake that professionals like her try to correct


"When you talk to the doctors, and they explain what they study in the Medicine career, they tell you that the digestive system for them begins once the mouth has finished."

Elena Figuero, professor of dentistry at the Complutense University of Madrid, says that the separation of dental health from the rest of medicine begins at the university, a mistake that professionals like her try to correct by studying the links between oral health and that of the rest of the body.

With more or less intense relationships, more than 50 diseases have already been found that can be caused or be aggravated by periodontal disease.

Periodontal disease, different from cavities, begins by affecting the gums, with what is known as gingivitis.

If left untreated, gingivitis can lead to periodontitis, damage the bone and even cause teeth to fall out.

“These diseases are caused by an imbalance between the patient's bacteria and the immune response, which causes an excessive amount of pathogenic bacteria to exist.

These can reach the bloodstream and produce bacteraemia, and generate an excessive inflammatory response with systemic effects”, says Figuero.

"Chronic inflammatory foci, even if they are of low intensity, such as periodontal disease, can produce alterations that make the blood-brain barrier more permeable, which protects the brain from dangerous elements," says Juan Carlos Leza, group coordinator at CIBERSAM (Center for Salud Biomédica en Red del Instituto de Salud Carlos III de salud mental) dedicated to exploring the biological bases of mental illness.

“Inflammation is a necessary response, like stress, but when there is continuous, low-intensity inflammation, the risk of problems such as strokes can increase,” adds Leza.

“A causal relationship has not been proven between having intestinal dysbiosis or a disorder of the mouth and having schizophrenia or suffering a stroke,

but it has been seen that people who have these problems have more inflammation, also in the mouth”, he points out.

Leza collaborates with Figuero in the study of the relationship between periodontal disease and depression, for the moment in mice.

Last week, at the 2023 international conference of the American Stroke Association, one of these works was presented.

In the study, more than 40,000 adults without a history of stroke registered in the UK Biobank were followed between 2014 and 2021. On the one hand, they searched for 105 genetic variants that predispose to caries or tooth loss and evaluated the relationship between those factors and poor dental health and brain health, which was examined with MRIs.

The analysis concluded that people who were prone to decay or had missing teeth had a higher burden of silent cerebrovascular disease and also more signs of microstructural damage in the brain.

Although the relationships between oral health and mental health are beginning to be seen, with increased risk of depression or Alzheimer's in people with periodontitis, there are some ailments in which the relationship has been clearly demonstrated.

"In diabetes, it has been seen that treating periodontitis has as much effect as sending a second oral antidiabetic, in such a way that it is possible to prevent the patient from having to take that second drug," explains Figuero.

“We're not there yet, but we'd like to see if, in patients with depression and periodontitis, their mental illness parameters improve when we treat [their mouth],” he adds.

The discovery of these relationships between oral health and that of the rest of the organism is part of a path of reunification of medical treatment to overcome the successes that specialization by organs or physiological systems gave modern medicine.

Better knowledge of the immune system and its relationship with the bacteria that inhabit the body seems to be a way to improve the treatment of many ailments, including mental ones, which are particularly misunderstood.

“The idea is to treat the patient as a whole”, sums up the researcher from the Complutense University.

For now, however, despite some recent advances, oral health treatment has been largely forgotten by public coverage.

"From the scientific societies or the universities, we try to include it among the primary care services, but for the moment those efforts are being unsuccessful and not much progress has been achieved in this field," says Figuero, who, despite now being have to pay out of pocket, suggests that an annual review to monitor the risk of periodontitis is cheaper than treating the disease when it is already advanced.

Evidence on the importance of taking care of your mouth is accumulating, and in addition to regular checkups, there are some simple steps that can help keep your teeth and brain healthy.

The fundamental one: Brushing with a fluorinated toothpaste to prevent cavities after meals and some type of interdental hygiene, with thread or specific brushes, to clean between teeth, because brushes only reach the surfaces, once a day.

Taking care of your teeth, concludes Figuero, "not only prolongs life expectancy, but it lengthens the quality of life, because you will chew better and you will even have better aesthetics."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-15

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