The Mouth: Gateway To Your Health

Fri, May 18, 2018
“The Mouth is connected to the rest of your body” and “There is a link between oral health and overall health” are common phrases we might see in a catchy news tagline on our homepage website or as a headline in the newspaper. But the fact that we have to be reminded of this shows that most of us still see our oral health as somehow separate from the rest of our body.

The reason for this is mostly rooted in the fact that we go to the dentist for our mouths and the doctor for the rest of the body. Medicine and dentistry have taken some different turns over the decades, but despite having different insurances, networks and schools, the mouth still acts as the major gateway into our bodies.

Air, food, water, bacteria and the occasional ice cube all enter through our mouths and into our respiratory, digestive, circulatory and immune systems. The connection between the mouth and the body isn’t some interesting factoid, it is a basic common-sense reality.

In this bi-weekly column I will be discussing how oral health impacts our overall health, how our overall health impacts our oral health and everything in between. We will discuss the relationship between the mouth and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, stress, cancer, autoimmune diseases, fertility, pregnancy, osteoporosis, respiratory diseases, facial development, ADHD, headaches, infections and a whole lot more! I will also be answering questions from our readers about topics of their interest. We look forward to exploring this connection together!

Dr. Richard Weber
Love Your Smile Dental