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Taking care of your teeth and gums is linked to better brain health, according to a new Japanese study. A good reason not to skip the brushing and care step.
In addition to hunting bacteria, treating enamel and ensuring good breath, taking care of your teeth would also be beneficial for general good health…. But also for the brain! In any case, this is the conclusion of a new study published on July 5 in the journal Neurology. This shows that gum disease and tooth loss are linked to brain shrinkage in the hippocampus, which plays a role in memory and Alzheimer’s disease. The study does not prove that gum disease or tooth loss causes Alzheimer’s disease, but suggests an association.
More than a year of aging when the gums are affected
The study thus focused on 172 people with an average age of 67 who had no memory problems at the start of the study. Participants took dental exams and memory tests. They also had brain scans to measure hippocampal volume at the start of the study and again four years later. For each participant, the researchers counted the number of teeth and checked for gum disease by looking at periodontal probing depth, a measure of gum tissue.
The researchers found that the number of teeth and the amount of gum disease were linked to changes in the left hippocampus of the brain;
- In people with mild gum disease, having fewer teeth was associated with a faster rate of brain shrinkage in the left hippocampus, equivalent to almost a year of brain aging;
- In people with severe gum disease, having more teeth was associated with a faster rate of brain shrinkage in the same area of the brain equivalent to 1.3 years of brain aging.
Taking care of your teeth, an important reflex as you age
For Satoshi Yamaguchi, author of the study, it highlights the importance of maintaining good oral health in general.
“These findings underscore the importance of maintaining healthy teeth and not just retaining teeth. Retaining teeth with severe gum disease is associated with brain atrophy. Controlling disease progression is crucial gums through regular dental visits, and teeth with severe gum disease may need to be extracted and replaced with appropriate dentures”.
Although further studies on larger groups of people and in places other than Japan are needed to determine this link with more precision, this finding is nevertheless worth considering:
“Tooth loss and gum disease, which is an inflammation of the tissues around the teeth that can cause receding gums and loosening of the teeth, are very common, so it is extremely important to assess a potential link to dementia.” , concludes the author.