Study Finds Link Between Tooth Loss And Fatal Heart Disease

Losing teeth is always unpleasant. Our pearly whites are quite literally worth their weight in gold considering prices of dental procedures if anything goes wrong. But apart from money, there might be another reason why you should take care of your teeth. A study has found a link between dental health and fatal heart diseases.

The study has been carried out by an international team of experts from University of Maryland, University of Belgrade, University of Sharjah, Case Western Reserve University and others. The study has been published in Journal of Endodontics.

There have been many studies on links between loss of teeth and fatal heart attack. Some studies say both of this things are linked, while the others say they are not.

Connecting tooth loss with heart diseases may seem a stretch at first but it is possible for pathogens to pass into our blood stream through gums and cause health issues.

Tooth loss ‘not just a dental issue’

“Our findings clearly show that tooth loss is not just a dental issue, but a significant predictor of cardiovascular disease mortality,” says Anita Aminoshariae, an endodontist at Case Western Reserve University in the US. She was quoted in a report on the university website.

The study found that those who lose most of all of their teeth have 66 per cent higher risk of cardiovascular diseases than those who have lost just a few or no teeth at all.

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For their study, the researchers pooled in data from 12 previously published studies.

There are other factors of course, like smoking, high cholesterol, ageing and more when it came to factors that lead to development of cardio-vascular diseases, but the link with tooth-loss remained.

Media reports on this study say that the link was associational and not causal.

But it certainly helps to keep your mouth clean and maintain a great oral hygiene to protect yourself from life-threatening diseases.

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