Gum Disease Linked to Heart Attacks and Strokes
The relationship between an individual’s systemic health and their oral health has been quite a prominent research focus in the past 10 years. The truth of the matter is, this piece only begins to skim the surface.
Gum disease (which causes damage to the supporting tissues of your teeth) and bone loss is caused by bacteria. Sometimes the bacteria species in our mouths can begin to outgrow and evade our immune systems’ ability to fight off the bacteria. This can be influenced by a number of factors: inadequate hygiene care at home, not getting your prophylaxis or maintenance dental cleanings often enough, genetics, stress, diet, medications, tobacco…just to name a few.
But when this bacterial overgrowth occurs in the mouth against your teeth it begins to grow in all directions, especially downward along your teeth between the gum and tooth (and eventually between your jaw bone and tooth). You have blood vessels that circulate through your gums and jaw bone near the teeth. The overgrown communities of bacteria can often detach from the tooth and bacterial cells can get inside the circulating blood vessels. When you have a condition where bacteria can detach like this and begin to circulate through the blood stream, this is called a “bactermia”. These bacteria
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cause direct damage of your body tissue, an inflammatory reaction by your body that can attempt to destroy the bacteria but also damage your body tissue
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create destructive enzymes and molecules that also circulate into your blood stream and can cause destructive inflammatory reactions by your body.
The concern here is the theory that these circulating bacteria have the real potential to damage other parts of the body that are very distant to the mouth (i.e., your arteries, heart, and other organs). For patients that have a joint or knee replacement, have you ever wondered why you have take antibiotics every time you get a dental cleaning? That is because when your teeth are being cleaned sometimes the gums may bleed, the bacteria in the mouth can get into the blood stream from the irritation of cleaning, and the concern of circulating bacteria in the blood stream worries physicians that the prosthetic joint can collect bacteria and get infected.
There was an article in Scientific American from 2007 that discussed this mechanism of damaging products from inflammation and how they can increase your chance of ultimately forming blood clots that can cause heart attacks and stroke. I have attached a chart from that article that shows you what I have just outlined.
Your physician may discuss your health with you in terms of risk factors and how they affect your risk of heart attack and stroke. These may include tobacco, stress, diet, genetics, etc…Does this list seem all too familiar now - remember the beginning of this article and risk factors contributing to gum disease? It’s amazing how our bodies grow, develop, and change, but also how everything that affects one part of our body may also have a more significant impact somewhere else.
-Kevin R. Suzuki, DMD, MS