The Connection Between Tooth Loss And Alzheimer’s Disease

In the past, tooth loss is often linked with the aging process. However, technological advancements in the level of dental treatments have shown that patients who neglected their oral health are actually exposing themselves to Alzheimer’s disease. When the severity of this condition worsens down the road, they will lose the ability to clean their own teeth and even stop to understand why their teeth need to be kept clean all the time. This is one of the many ways Alzheimer’s disease can affect a patient’s dental health, but let’s find out how the strange connection between the two works.

How is that possible?

It is truly strange to know that the oral health of an individual can affect his or her cognitive capabilities. However, you should not feel this way any longer as this connection between mental issues like Alzheimer’s and a low number of teeth has already been revealed in several studies that were conducted in the past.

Currently, there are two feasible explanations for this phenomenon. The first one states that the increase production and secretion of inflammatory substances in the body, by a chronic infection of the gingiva, can damage the brain if it reaches it. The second one states that the low intake of vital vitamins such as vitamin B can cause a mastication problem and lead to this problem.

Increased tooth loss aggravates the problem

While there are some good news that inform us that there are reverse actions to assist in preventing the further deterioration of a patient’s cognitive capabilities, you should note that every loss of a tooth will increase the likelihood of patients scoring lower in their mental tests, especially ten years down the road. In addition to that, if a person loses more than 10 teeth within a decade, the risk of developing Alzheimer’s comes close to 100%! These results have been acquired from tests that assess patients, who have lost about twelve teeth within ten years, on their mental capabilities.

What’s the main takeaway of understanding this connection?

Whether it is dementia or Alzheimer’s, these problems are becoming increasingly common and modern medicine has not yet fully succeeded in finding an exact cure to prevent it as well as any treatable problems that lead to these mental diseases. But there’s still hope as it is believed that finding the connection between Alzheimer’s and caries among the elderly population may assist in the ongoing prevention of such diseases and that high oral hygiene is maintained.

So far, all that has been done is an observatory study, in which the control groups of earlier tests were not manipulated and intervention has not taken place. Today, scientists have found that regular dentist visits are one of the methods of preventing early onset of Alzheimer’s or dementia. While the danger here affects mostly the elderly, proper steps to preserve one’s oral hygiene should always begin from a young age. If you are able to maintain good oral routines on a regular basis, you should be able to maintain great mental and physical health in the long term.