World Oral Health Day: Good Health Starts with Your Teeth!
You may think of your teeth as the sharpest tool in your body's shed but, as indestructible as they may seem, they do need a bit of tender loving care. This World Oral Health Day, learn how loving your teeth can help your overall health!
In many ways, your mouth is the gateway to your body. It's filled with teeth and sensory cells that introduce food into your body to be used for energy. It's also home to myriad immune cells that keep you safe and protect your digestive system from unfriendly fire. We owe a large portion of our health and wellbeing to our mouths, and so it's only polite that we return the favor by making sure we pay attention to our oral health from time to time.
Luckily, plenty of the measures we can take to keep our teeth and mouths safe overlap with measures that can keep many other areas of our bodies safe, too. So, once you've completed your regular dental cleaning and checkup, you can work on your dental health and your overall health by keeping the following in mind.
Sugar is delicious, but it can erode our teeth and wreak havoc in other areas of our bodies, too. Cut down on (or cut out) the sweet stuff to improve your oral hygiene and decrease your risk of liver disease, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.
Smoking is a known health hazard. You're probably aware that it is linked to lung cancer and heart disease, but did you also know that it can cause oral cancers? Butt out and protect your overall health.
Alcohol is another thing you can put in your mouth that has a bad track record when it comes to health. As well as contributing to liver disease, heart disease, obesity, and mental-health problems, it can also cause cancers of the mouth and gums, as well as tooth decay due to its high level of acidity.
So, what can you put in your mouth that will enhance, rather than worsen, your health? A toothbrush! Brush your teeth for two minutes twice a day and floss to remove plaque (the scientific word for mouth gunk) and bacteria. This will keep your teeth and gums happy and healthy, which will not only save you lots of time and money at the dentist, but will also stave off diseases like diabetes and heart disease.
www.fdiworlddental.org
www.cdc.gov
www.healthline.com
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