Healthy Mouth, Healthy Heart

The Oral and Heart Health Connection

Coronary heart disease contributes to the deaths of 2,400 Americans a day.¹ But your cardiologist and dentist may have more reasons than ever to join forces to fight it. Studies suggest a connection between your gums and your heart, showing that taking care of one may help protect the other.

Oral Arguments: The Connection Between Your Heart and Gums

So, how exactly are your heart health and mouth health connected? That’s been one of the more elusive questions for researchers, but there are three main theories:

• Bacteria. When gums are damaged or in poor shape, bacteria from the mouth may enter the bloodstream. This bacteria has the potential to travel to areas in your body far from your mouth and cause blood vessel damage, blood vessel inflammation and heart valve infections. These may in turn lead to blood clots, heart attacks and strokes.²
• Inflammation. Gum disease is one of the diseases that causes your body to be in a continuous state of inflammation.³ As your body’s immune response, inflammation can cause vascular damage throughout your body⁴ and can precede heart attacks and strokes.² Since a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 47.2% of adults aged 30 years or older have some form of gum disease, this can impact a lot of people.⁵
• Non-causational correction. It is possible that oral disease doesn’t directly cause disease, and that people who don’t take good care of themselves are likely to struggle in both their oral and cardiovascular health. While a direct causal link between oral and heart disease hasn’t been fully established, the correlation does show that establishing healthy habits is beneficial to you and your overall health.⁴

Your best interest at heart

What this research tells us is that the health of one system can affect and reflect another. Make sure to floss and brush regularly and see your dentist twice a year for regular checkups and cleanings. It’s another way to have your body’s best interest at heart.

¹American Heart Association, 2022.
²PennMedicine
³American Heart Association, 2018.
⁴Harvard Health Publishing
⁵Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

GuideStone^® welcomes the opportunity to share this general information. However, this article is not intended to be relied upon as medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.