Gingivitis Can Cause And Usually Contributes To Heart Disease,
More Preventive Measures For Your Teeth

Gingivitis Causes Heart Disease

Believe it or not, the bacteria that causes gingivitis moves from the mouth to other places in the body including arteries, causing or accelerating the atherosclerosis form of heart disease.

Bacteremia is bacterial infection of the blood. The blood stream is what carries bacteria from the mouth to the other parts of the body. “The incidence of bacteremia following dental procedures … was observed in 100% of the patients after dental extraction, in 70% after dental scaling, in 55% after third-molar surgery, in 20% after endodontic treatment…. “. After any dental work, consider having a bottle of hydrogen peroxide ready and a bottle of water ready and right after the dental work rinse several times with hydrogen peroxide and then with water. It’s estimated that people with poor dental hygiene lose about 10 years of life to dental bacteria spreading to the rest of the body.

More Preventative Measures:

Use An Electric Flosser

Flossing with string is uncomfortable and awkward, but electric flossers do the work for you and work great. They’re worth the $35 they usually sell for. Electric flossers have a soft rubber tip that vibrates at high speed creating a rubbing effect which more closely follows the contour of your teeth and gums than flossing with string. The purpose of flossing is to remove plaque and small food particles from below the gum line along teeth. It’s easy for bacteria to slide between teeth and gums and cause cavities, gingivitis, gum swelling, and move to other places in the body.

Use A Soft Bristle Toothbrush

Firm (“hard”) bristles scratch and scrape gums helping infect gums and spread the germs that cause gingivitis. Firm toothbrushes also don’t clean teeth as well as soft bristle toothbrushes because stiff bristles don’t bend like soft bristles do. Try to find the widest soft bristle toothbrush you can. Firm and electric toothbrushes do not have the swiping motion needed to push food particles out from between teeth.

Use An Electric Toothbrush For Back Teeth

Electric toothbrushes are best for preventing cavities in back teeth. A meal containing types of food that can pack onto or stick to teeth (i.e. cereal, crackers, other flour products, chips, etc.) can really pack or stick to both the side and especially the top of lower back teeth. A soft bristle tooth brush is great for not wearing your teeth down, but a few back and forth brushings with a soft bristle toothbrush over food packed onto teeth often doesn’t remove food packed onto teeth. Hydrogen peroxide can’t really get underneath food packed onto teeth but somehow bacteria does. Electric toothbrushes are ideal for removing food packed onto teeth. Electric toothbrushes are also best for shining teeth. Electric toothbrushes are also best for removing the white line of plaque that settles along the gum before it hardens. (If the white line hardens, you’ll have to have it scraped off by a dentist.) An electric toothbrush is not a replacement for your soft bristle toothbrushes.

Periodontal Scaling

If you can afford it or have insurance coverage for periodontal scaling, have it done at least once in your life, preferably every few years. The dentist scrapes out buildup on teeth below the gum line between the gums and teeth. It’s not painful, but it is expensive. If you call for a price, make sure you ask if the price is for all your teeth or for a fourth of your teeth (per quadrant). Usually prices are given per “quadrant” – the real price may be 4 times the price you’re given.

Xylitol

Xylitol has a synthetic chemical sounding name but is actually a natural chemical found in certain trees and tastes just as sweet as sugar. Xylitol breaks up plaque and prevents bacterial infection. Xylitol also prevents ear infections. If you like to chew gum, make sure it’s sweetened only with Xylitol. Xylitol causes dogs seizures. Do not feed any dog anything made with Xylitol.

Soda is really bad for teeth and gums. Soda has a pH between 2.5 and 5.5, while healthy saliva pH is between 6.8 and 7.2. Soda is so acidic it causes chemical breakdown of tooth enamel, which leads to cavities. The low pH of soda is caused by the carbonation (bubbles, fizz) of soda. The carbon dioxide gas (the gas inside of the bubbles) of carbonation reacts with water forming carbonic acid. Soda is the number one most unhealthy food product.

Gingivitis and Losing Teeth

Healthy gums are pink and do not bleed. Tooth loss is most often caused by the bacteria that causes gingivitis due to poor dental hygiene. Long term vitamin C deficiency also causes tooth loss. Vitamin C deficiency is usually caused by lack of fruits and vegetables (or juices of fruits and vegetable), pregnancy, drug use, alcohol abuse, and some medications. There’s no one specific kind or species of bacterium that causes gingivitis; there are over 500 different species that cause the collection of symptoms called gingivitis. Bacterial levels can reach more than 100 billion bacterium per mg of dental plaque.

The main reason why hydrogen peroxide works so well is because the body runs on aerobic (with oxygen) respiration and friendly bacteria are also aerobic. But harmful bacteria (like the germs that cause gingivitis) run on anaerobic (without oxygen) respiration. Since hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer, it kills anaerobic bacteria by suffocating anaerobic bacteria with oxygen.

If infected gums are not assisted in healing, gums will pull away from teeth, a level of deterioration called periodontitis. Food particles and bacteria collect between the teeth and gums providing plenty of food and space for bacteria to thrive. Periodontitis weakens and removes bone, gums, and the tissue that supports teeth, causing tooth loss.

Hydrogen Peroxide Not Always Needed For Cuts and Scrapes

For cuts, scrapes, and minor burns, especially sunburns, Aloe works great for helping the body heal these sort of injuries. Hydrogen peroxide kills germs but slows the healing process a little. For things like bug bites, animal bites, brother bites, sister bites, dirty water in a cut, etc., use hydrogen peroxide for cleaning the wound to prevent infection, but after cleaning the wound use Aloe. Aloe is well known as Aloe Vera. Aloe aids the healing process and has been used for many types of wounds of the skin for over 3000 years. Works on pets too. Every home should have a tube of aloe. “Fruit of the Earth” makes a pretty good aloe product. Of course if you don’t see some healing in a day or two, you should see a doctor. If you have a target shape (a circle with a dot in the center) you should see a doctor as soon as you can. The symptom is caused by Lyme Disease, a bacterial infection (first found in Lyme, Connecticut).