For many people a new year means a resolution to eat better or exercise more – penance, perhaps, for overindulging over the holidays. For others, it’s more of an intent to start an informal detox from all the sweets and alcohol and such, coupled with renewed determination to make healthier choices as they forge ahead.
Even if we don’t always live it, most of us understand that the small choices we make each day do add up to sometimes large and serious consequences.
What do you reach for when you’re thirsty, a cool drink of water or a soft drink? Do you consistently get a good night’s sleep or rely on caffeine to power through the day? Do your dinners come out of a box or takeaway container, or are they meals cooked at home from whole and minimally processed ingredients?
It’s not just about systemic health, either. A recent study in Scientific Reports highlights how these kinds of decisions can affect your oral health.
The study’s goal was to examine the relationship between Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) and the prevalence of periodontitis in American adults. LE8 is a scoring system developed by the American Heart Association to measure heart health. Four of those eight factors are focused on behavior: diet, physical activity, nicotine use, and sleep quality. The others are health factors that your doctor would measure: body mass index (BMI), cholesterol, blood glucose, and blood pressure. Scores range from 0 to 100.
Using data from the national Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2009-2014, the research team analyzed relevant information from more than 7000 patients. In the end, they found that those who had LE8 scores over 50 were 55 to 58% less likely to have periodontitis than those with lower scores.
Periodontitis is the advanced form of gum disease in which tissue damage occurs. As you lose more bone from the jaw and attachment weakens, the teeth loosen in their sockets. Tooth loss becomes a very real possibility.
Interestingly, the researchers found that certain LE8 factors had more of an impact than others.
The most pronounced factor? Whether a person smoked or not. Smoking – the number one risk factor for gum disease, by the way – accounted for a full 62.3% of lifestyle’s impact on periodontal health.
Glucose levels had the next biggest impact: 18.2%. This is unsurprising, since the two-way relationship between diabetes and gum disease is well established. This was followed by sleep health and blood pressure, with each of those adding up to roughly 8% of the total impact.
And don’t be fooled by the fact that diet wasn’t among the most critical factors. Type 2 diabetes is far more common than type 1, and it’s mediated by diet. Other research has confirmed a link between diet quality and periodontal disease, as well, such as this recent review in Evidence Based Dentistry.
Notably, that study also found that the effects were more pronounced in older populations. In the Scientific Reports study, those between the ages of 40 and 60 saw the largest oral health benefit from healthy lifestyle choices.
Such choices are essential for preventing or reducing chronic inflammation – the common denominator that gum disease shares with a wide range of systemic health problems, from heart disease and stroke to chronic kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer’s and even some cancers.
Bottom line? Not smoking, watching your blood sugar, getting your beauty rest, and keeping your blood pressure in check are likely doing your gums a huge favor, too – proving once again that everything in the human body is connected.
But you already knew that, didn’t you?
