We learned to take care of our teeth as small children, brushing them before school each day and before bed each night. A new study suggests oral care doesn’t just benefit our chompers, but also our tickers.
The study, conducted by Osaka University in Japan, found a connection between when individuals brush their teeth and their risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The link between dental diseases and cardiovascular disease risk isn’t new, and the researchers cited several reports that suggest perioperative oral care positively affects cardiovascular surgery outcomes.
The study included 1,675 people at Osaka University Hospital between April 2013 and March 2016 who were admitted for either an exam, surgery or treatment, or were in the dentistry unit for oral care, treatment or screening for infection.
The participants were separated into four groups: Group MN said they brushed their teeth twice a day (when they woke up and before they went to bed); Group Night brushed their teeth once daily, at night; Group M practiced oral care only when they woke up; and Group None didn’t brush their teeth.
“Although ‘brushing teeth once a day’ can imply brushing teeth at night after supper or before bedtime, we encounter many middle-aged and older patients in routine clinical practice who do not brush their teeth at night but only in the morning before breakfast. Many of them perceive the mouth to be unclean in the morning and thus brush their teeth before breakfast to avoid ingesting intraoral deposits (any hard or soft material on a tooth),” they wrote. “However, having breakfast also leads to intraoral deposits, which persist throughout the day and increase the risk of periodontal disease and dental caries.”
Analyses of cardiovascular events in participants showed much higher survival estimates in groups MN and Night than in Group None.
The study also revealed smokers in Group None had a worse prognosis for cardiovascular onset events than those in the other groups, as did nonsmokers with hospitalizations in Groups None and M.
Although their study was limited only to cardiovascular patients, “the findings clearly indicate that only brushing in the morning after waking up is inadequate and that brushing at night is good to maintain good health,” the researchers wrote. “These implications are consistent with the theory that the intraoral bacterial load increases during sleep at night due to reduced salivary flow.”
