How Oral Health Affects Overall Health

We brush our teeth morning and night, but did you know there is so much more to oral health than just brushing your teeth?

It begins with digestion. We eat and enzymes begin to break down our food in the mouth while we chew. We produce saliva in our mouth, which is a digestive juice that moistens our food and neutralizes acids produced by bacteria, it also contains a digestive enzyme that helps break down starches. Our teeth help us break down the food particles into digestible pieces for our stomach. Our tongue helps us taste our food with the aid of our taste buds. Your mouth is responsible for mechanical and chemical digestion. Mechanical is the actual process of chewing with the use of your teeth and moving food around with the help of your tongue. Chemical is the process of breaking down food particles like amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starches, as mentioned above. Everything begins in the mouth and that is why we need to ensure that we take care of our oral health.

Oral health can be a window to overall health. Your mouth is the entry point for bacteria. If we don’t establish natural defenses by brushing our teeth and flossing to remove unwanted bacteria and boosting our immune system, we can develop things like cavities, gingivitis, gum disease, inflammation, infection of our wisdom teeth, canker sores, decay and so on. It’s very important that we take care of our oral health. So...how do we do that?

Here are some simple ways you can take care of your oral health:

Brush and floss - Brush teeth at least twice a day and try using an all-natural toothpaste because it doesn't contain dyes and artificial ingredients. Flossing is a step we shouldn’t be missing, small food particles can get trapped in between our teeth leading to an overgrowth of bad bacteria, which can lead to gingivitis and cavities. Flossing can prevent this plaque from building up.

Tongue scraping - can be beneficial first thing in the morning at removing bacteria build-up and can help remove odour-causing bacteria that leads to bad breath.

Essential oil - you can add a drop of dental essential oil that contains neem, clove, cinnamon and peppermint to your floss or toothbrush. It’s good at eliminating bacteria in your mouth. https://www.bodyfooddental.com/

Reduce sugar - Sugar can wreak havoc on your teeth. It can disrupt the natural bacteria in your mouth, bad bacteria can feed off sugar and attack tooth enamel, and it can also create cavities and tooth decay. It’s important that we reduce our intake of processed sugars.

Boosting your immune system - bacteria can enter our system through our mouth and if we don’t have a strong enough immune system then it can cause all sorts of problems. That’s why it is important to boost your immune system. Some helpful supplements that boost the immune system are Vitamin C, Zinc, Deep Immune by St. Francis and Vitamin D, Quercetin by AOR and Black Elderberry.

Make sure to take care of your oral health to create better overall health!

By Marina Dimitrova, BSW, RHN

@madetobewild