As though you needed another reason to keep your teeth clean and regularly visit an endodontist near Downtown Chicago, oral health is also important for your overall health. Your mouth, after all, can often serve as ground zero for infectious diseases—especially if you don’t practice good dental habits.
But that’s not the only reason your oral health is important to your overall health. Rather, there are a few different ways that your oral health impacts your general well-being. And, as an endodontist near Downtown Chicago near Downtown Chicago, we’ll outline a few of them here.
Infections Often Start in the Mouth
Believe it or not, there are hundreds of bacteria that live inside your mouth at any given time, but thanks to your saliva, these bacteria do not enter your bloodstream. However, if you have poor dental health, your saliva’s ability to fend off dangerous bacteria may be compromised. If that’s the case, you’ll be more likely to develop infections in the rest of your body.
Oral Health and its Associations with Overall Health
Though an endodontist near Downtown Chicago will be quick to point out that research has not yet shown whether poor oral health causes heart diseases, premature birth, or difficult-to-manage diabetes, there is clear evidence linking all of these conditions to poor dental health. As Colgate’s website points out, “The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research estimates that as many as 18