What’s your plan for a new you
You know what happens after New Year’s Eve is over and you’ve been up all night celebrating with Prosecco and night clubs (depending on your age; it could be in bed at 12.30pm after Auld Lang Syne and a large whiskey or two)? New Year’s Day and then all of January, that’s what.
We love our seasonal behaviours, we humans, and January is the time for a makeover. People join the gym, they give up drinking (mostly because there’s none left anyway after all those festivities), they go on a diet. But how many of them think about a dental overhaul as part of their programme of New Year, New You in Loughton? At Forest Dental, we’d like to suggest that, if you want to get really well, sorting out your oral health should be at the top of your list of projects.
The gateway to your body
If you think about it, your mouth is the gateway to your body. It leads down into your lungs and also to your stomach and intestines. If something gets into either and it’s small enough, it can pass through your gut wall, or the lining of your lungs, and into your bloodstream. So, if you have bad things going on in your mouth, such as decay, gum disease and infection, it can lead to systemic disease.
In fact, gum disease has been shown to be closely linked to systemic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. At first it was thought that it was the bacteria causing it, but it’s actually the inflammation. Gum disease is also linked to osteoporosis, both are diseases involving bone loss.
If you breathe in bacteria from gum disease, it can lead to pneumonia. And men with gum disease are much more likely to develop kidney or pancreatic cancer.
So, if you really want to be healthy on the inside, come and get a check-up, a scale and polish and make sure you have dealt with these disease-causing conditions. Then keep coming back twice a year. In between, you need to brush twice daily with a fluoride toothpaste, and don’t forget to floss as well.