One of the big challenges of gum disease is that it’s easy to overlook symptoms until the disease has progressed quite a bit. There’s typically no pain, and even tell-tale signs such as puffy gums or blood when you brush and floss aren’t apparent in every case....
Chronic inflammation is one of the common denominators of gum disease and systemic illness. But “systemic” includes more than just physical conditions but mental, as well. Through recent years, there’s been a rising tide of both medical and media interest in the...
Vitamin D, we’ve noted before, is crucial for healthy teeth and also plays an important role in strengthening the immune system and warding off depression and fatigue. Both of those are more common in the dark days of winter, of course. Now that summer is just...
Why do we make such a big deal about gum disease and periodontal health? For one, almost everyone is affected by it. According to one study, 93.8% of all adults were found to have some degree of gingivitis, or early stage gum disease that is largely reversible....
Despite studies like one of several we looked at last week, suggesting that exercise may be even better for periodontal (gum) health than improved diet, more research suggests that diet is crucial – possibly even enough to reverse gum disease on its own. It’s a...
Exercise might be the last thing you think of when it comes to ways of taking care of your teeth (well, unless you’re a regular reader and remember this post), but it’s true. Yes, exercise. Physical activity. Walking. Running. Swimming. Working out at the gym....
Some people say vaping is a healthier option than smoking, but is it? A new study in JAMA Network Open aimed to find out. Researchers analyzed urine samples and data on tobacco use from 5105 participants. Some smoked cigarettes. Some vaped. Some did both....
It’s long been thought that bruxing (tooth grinding) and gum disease are linked. Now, a new study in the Archives of Oral Biology sheds some new light on the matter. This small but intriguing study compared tooth grinding among two groups of patients, one with...
The link between gum disease and other inflammatory conditions is well established. Those systemic health problems include heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, and some cancers. Consider breast cancer, for instance. A while back, we looked at a 2011 study out of...
Chances are, you already know that good oral health is essential to overall health. But did you know that gum disease is more common in heart attack patients than in healthy individuals? Not only are both conditions marked by chronic inflammation; many of the...
If you just change what you eat, could it help reverse gum disease? Even if you don’t change your hygiene habits at all? A small but compelling German study in BMC Oral Health suggests yes. For two months, an experimental group switched from their regular diet to...
Tea is infamous for staining teeth. It’s also slightly acidic – even more so if sugar or lemon is added. Yet there’s also a good amount of evidence that it could help support your oral health. The latest is a study just published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers...
Good nutrition is essential for fighting gum disease. But which nutrients matter most? The nutrients in your food can be classified as macronutrients or micronutrients. Macronutrients are the ones needed in relatively large amounts: fats, proteins, and...
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you how gum disease can affect your overall health – and how evidence suggests that treating it may ease the symptoms of chronic conditions such as diabetes. Now, new research suggests periodontal therapy may help control...
So what do you do to tame chronic, low-grade inflammation? The first step, if possible, is to eliminate the source of the problem. If that source is gum disease, then it’s essential to address it as soon as possible. After all, early stage gum disease is...
While acute inflammation is a necessary part of the immune response and healing process, chronic inflammation is another story. Chronic inflammation is what happens when the inflammatory response doesn’t stop as it should. It keeps on keeping on, like a...
As we’ve noted before, folks with gum disease are more likely to have diabetes than those without. In fact, the more severe the gum disease, the more likely a patient was to be diabetic. But we also have new evidence that periodontal treatment can actually help...
A new clinical study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests it might. For the study, researchers randomly split 42 adults who were habitual short sleepers into two groups. One group was coached on increasing their sleep time. The other received no...
Could your mouth be the secret to maintaining a healthy blood pressure level? Research presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Heart association suggests that periodontal (gum) disease treatment alone may be enough to lower blood pressure in...
If you suffer from gum disease – and most Americans have it to one degree or another – getting regular exercise is one of the best things you can do. This is the surprising conclusion of research published last month in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology. The...