How Your Dental Health Impacts Your Body’s Natural Defenses

Dental health care plays an important role in providing a favorable environment for the body to fight against disease-causing microorganisms like bacteria. The mouth forms an important entry point of all the food nutrients.

The salivary glands in the mouth produce saliva that provides an alkaline medium favorable for the digestion of the starch. Saliva contains antibacterial agents that kill bacteria and protect the mouth from dangerous diseases. Below are five ways dental healthcare impacts your body’s natural defenses.

Pregnancy complications

Poor dental health care leads to changes in hormone levels that suppress the ability of pregnant women to fight against health issues like pregnancy tumors. These oral conditions of the mother may lead to poor health outcomes for the baby and the mother.

That’s why pregnant women need to ensure that they observe proper healthcare. If possible, they visit the dentist regularly for check-ups.

Dental tourism can be of great help in countries with advanced oral care technologies. Visiting dentaltourismcr.com will guide the pregnant mother on the importance of making the best decision when choosing a dental clinic abroad. 

Respiratory complications

There is a very close relationship between oral health and systematic conditions, not limited to respiratory conditions. In the mouth, there are so many bacteria that exist in the balance due to the conditions of the mouth.

Some bacteria are useful in the body, while others are very harmful when they grow out of control. If the bacteria manage to travel down from the mouth to the lungs, an individual may experience lung infections.

The other way the oral bacteria may get into the lungs is when an individual aspirates it into the lungs. It’s normal to breathe in germs, but if the rate is too much, one may be at risk of getting their lungs infected. 

Nutritional deficiencies

Poor oral health has been associated with malnutrition. That’s because it affects the selection of the nutrients and their intake, leading to frailty and sarcopenia. The inability to chew food also due to oral complications or consuming few foods with lower nutritional value lowers the ability of the body to fight against diseases. Malnutrition due to poor oral health often occurs among older Americans.

It is very difficult for them to chew food effectively. Chewing food increases the surface area over which the digestion takes place. That means that the effect of the enzymes on the food that is not properly chewed is less and most of the nutrients present are likely to go into waste. Lack of certain nutritional elements in the body may lead to low production of white blood cells.

As a result, the individual is susceptible to various illnesses that they may be subjected to. That’s why it’s important for people with oral complications causing chewing problems to be advised to take supplements. The faster the uptake of the nutrients, the faster the reaction of the body against infections. 

Aggressive immune response 

Oral healthcare is very important when it comes to making your body work against disease-causing germs. With so many bacteria being reproduced daily due to poor healthcare, the immune system is likely to strain as white blood cells fight against the germs.

That means that the body must keep the fight on daily as it tries to counter the effect of the new strains of the bacteria. Eventually, this may lead to an aggressive immune response that will affect the body's functionality in different ways. In most cases, people with aggressive immune responses are likely to experience a frequent rise in body temperature.