A cardiologist has warned people to do two things at night and in the morning to lower your risk of heart disease. Talking about brushing and flossing, he stresses that gum problems can lead to complications with arteries and heart valves - and it could be fatal.
In his video, Doctor Jeremy London revealed: "Brushing and flossing your teeth can decrease your risk of heart disease by 10 to 12%. Poor oral hygiene can lead to gum disease.
"This can lead to infection which does two things. It increases whole body inflammation and in severe cases, can actually seed the bloodstream with bacteria."
But how does this affect the heart? The expert explained: "While chronic inflammation is a known driver of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. This is a known risk factor for heart attack and stroke."
In his second point, he explained: "If there is a bacteria in the blood, it can attach to the valves, causing a severe infection that could require open-heart surgery and valve replacement. Now, remember heart disease is the number one killer of men and women worldwide taking over 19 million lives per year."
"So get the easy stuff right. Brush and flush your teeth twice a day and see your dentist twice a year", he concluded.
Backing up the doctor's claims, Doctor Souvik Sen, Chair and Professor of Neurology, at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia and Prisma Health Midlands, carried out a study involving 6,278 participants.
These individuals answered questions about home use of dental floss, and around 65 percent of participants reported flossing at least once a week. These participants were followed for 25 years.
The study revealed that flossing just once a week was associated with a 22 per cent lower risk of ischemic stroke and a 44 per cent lower risk of cardio embolic stroke.
In response to the findings, Dr Souvik Sen said: "Stroke is likened to be a brain attack, meaning something in the blood vessel is causing somebody to have stroke symptoms. There are two broad types of stroke. One is lack of blood supply, which is called ischemic stroke, and the other is bleeding into the brain, called hemorrhagic stroke."
"In this study, we found a specific association with ischemic stroke. The ischemic stroke is from blockage in the blood vessel and can arise from a number of reasons."
In his explanation, he concluded: "It could be from hardening of the blood vessels, or it could be from an irregular heartbeat condition. In this study, we found that that risk for ischemic stroke was tied to the cardio embolic type of strokes, although there was some association with the hardening kind or thrombotic kind of stroke as well."
Did you know that brushing and flossing your teeth can decrease your risk for heart disease? Let us know in the comments.
