Health and Dental Hygiene: How your Dental Health Affects the Overall Health

When dentistry has become a practicing field in the 19^th century, patients have been able to hope for little more as compare to the pulling of infected teeth and potentially, several primitive fixing of the broken teeth. More than that, there were not much people who are able promote their own dental health. Fortunately, in the modern day, dentistry has evolved toward a highly technical field with the capability of fixing even the most complicated and most severe problem presented by patients. Patients have never had lots of options available to them for the promotion of good dental hygiene. While that alone is a good news, there are studies, which indicate that good dental health will not only improve things in the mouth, but also indicate the overall health of a person.

Mostly, dental patients are routinely completing medical questionnaires and reviewing their health histories with dental professionals during their partial visit. Then, the dentist will check their mouth. Most commonly, if they find signs of serious gum, they are going to compare the health histories of the patients with moderate to advanced periodontal disease through obtaining laboratory data for a complete blood count, urinalysis, and standard blood chemistry panel. Gum disease may become an indicator and it may lead into other serious health problems.

Many of these patients did not report suffering from diabetes, but they would find that they do. In all dental patients tested, about 15% of them are found positive for diabetes. In addition, only a small percentage has been reported for excellently high values of cholesterol. This test result alone has put these patients at a great risk for heart attack and stroke. These kinds of studies regarding underreported conditions are alarming. It is essential for patients to know what disease they have or if they are at a high risk in order to be prepared in taking steps to control the risk factors before the disease becomes full-blown.

Dentists are fast in pointing out and these kinds of findings are also an indicator that they may not have the knowledge that they are up against during the dental treatment of potential diabetes patients. For instance, uncontrolled and undiagnosed diabetes may have a profound impact on the oral health and it can greatly affect the outcomes and procedures of the treatment. There has been a very strong connection between dental hygiene and diabetes. Diabetic people are more likely to develop infections like periodontal disease and periodontal disease is making it harder for people who have diabetes to control their blood sugar. Additionally, people who have periodontal disease and diabetes are more prone to recurrent periodontal abscesses.

There are also researcher about the link between dental health and heart disease. People who have problems on dental health tend to be almost 2x more likely to suffer from coronary artery disease. All of these studies are determinants that it is important for dental patients not to only seek treatment but also find information concerning potential underlying problems on the overall health.