Bleeding gums may lead to heart diseases

Janani AMARASEKARA

When it comes to good habits, one of the first things we remember is brushing our teeth. If you do not brush your teeth properly, your dental hygiene will be poor and may lead to tooth decay and bleeding gums.

The mouth is the most unclean place in our body. Can you imagine going to school without brushing your teeth? You will lose your beautiful smile and with the unpleasant smell coming from your mouth, your friends might not like to be around you.

Recently, at a press conference held in Ireland at the Society for General Microbiology’s Autumn meeting, it was revealed that people with bleeding gums are prone to heart diseases. People with poor dental hygiene and those who don’t brush their teeth regularly have bleeding gums. When you have bleeding gums, your blood stream is exposed to around 700 types of bacteria in your mouth. This increases the risk of getting heart diseases.

“If you have an open blood vessel due to bleeding gums, bacteria will gain entry to your blood stream. When bacteria get into the blood stream, they encounter tiny fragments called platelets. Bacteria cause these platelets to clot inside the blood vessel, partially blocking it. This prevents the blood flow back to the heart and we run the risk of suffering a heart attack,” Dr. Steve Kerrigan from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland has said.

Doctors try to treat such heart infections through an aggressive antibiotic therapy, but this is just a temporary treatment. According to statistics, heart attacks are one of the biggest killers in the world.

Out of all oral bacteria, Streptococcus gordonii and Streptococcus sanguinis are common bacteria that can cause heart attacks.

“This is another risk of heart attacks,” Professor Howard Jenkinson from the University of Bristol has said. If you have poor dental health, no matter how slim and healthy you are, you still run the risk of getting a heart attack.

“Most studies that have looked at how bacteria interact with platelets were carried out under conditions that do not resemble those in the human circulatory system. We mimicked (imitated) the pressure inside the blood vessels and in the heart,” Professor Jenkinson has said.

“Using this technique, we demonstrated that bacteria use different mechanisms to cause platelets to clump together, allowing them to completely protect bacteria,” he added.

This research results had been instrumental in understanding why antibiotics do not help treat heart diseases. Scientists are now trying to identify the exact place where the bacteria stick to the platelets. Then, they will try to design a new drug to treat patients.

Now, you know the risk of not brushing your teeth properly. According to Professor of Paediatric Dentistry, former Dean, Faculty of Dental Sciences at the University of Peradeniya, Prof. R. Lakshman Wijayaweera, keeping your mouth healthy is very important and proper oral hygiene is a must.

“Brushing teeth twice a day or at least once a day in a thorough and proper manner would help us to keep our mouths healthy,” advised Prof. Wijayaweera.

“The most important thing is you must brush your teeth after breakfast and after dinner. It is useless brushing them before meals. It won’t help you to protect your teeth,” he added.

When brushing, you must start from the side of the gum and brush towards the end of the tooth. This will help you to clean your teeth properly. So, remember hereafter, failing to brush your teeth would not just lead to toothaches, but to heart attacks as well!