Tag: oral health

“Your mouth is the front door to your body.” You’ll hear this a lot around here at The Dental Medical Convergence. There’s much truth in that statement. Think about it: Do you like the front door and entryway of your home to be littered with trash and dirt? Probably not. One of the first things people probably notice about you is your smile. That’s your front door. It’s not about having perfect, straight and clean teeth – it’s about having a healthy mouth. That one thing can tell a lot about what’s going on inside the rest of your body.

You could say Dr. Chuck Reinertsen’s interest in connecting the mouth to overall health began many, many years ago when he was a Boy Scout. “We learned about infections and how to clean a wound,” he told Dr. Jesse Green during a recent interview on The Savvy Dentist Podcast. That knowledge of caring for infections stuck with him until dental school. “We asked some of the instructors: ‘What about the infections in the mouth? Aren’t they going to get in the bloodstream?’” Dr. Chuck says they were told no because of an oral barrier, a myth he says has since been debunked.

Caring for your mouth means caring for the health of your whole body. That’s why rethinking your oral hygiene routine could provide benefits beyond white teeth and fresh breath. It could mean avoiding cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and pregnancy complications. Dr. Chuck Reinertsen discussed the benefits of changing the way you care for your dental health during a webinar you can watch here. 

For many people, it isn't easy to think of our body as one connected machine. It is easier to think of ourselves as separate working parts that make up a whole. This is how we have been taught as young children, and it is how the medical community deals with health issues. If you go to your doctor with a specific health concern, the symptoms are treated, and you are sent on your way. Very seldom do doctors utilize a whole-health approach and look at the entire body to find connections between illness and the symptoms being experienced. Unfortunately, this is causing people all over the world to suffer needlessly.

Do you know where cavities come from? If you are like most Americans, you have probably spent your entire life believing a lie. Most people firmly believe a diet high in sugary foods and not brushing your teeth will be the main culprit in causing cavities. Unfortunately, this isn't entirely accurate.

When it comes to taking care of our mouths, we’ve been taught wrong all along. Since childhood, we have been told to brush our teeth twice a day for as long as it takes to sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice — roughly two minutes. This just isn't long enough, and as we get older, most of us spend even less time than this. We squirt some toothpaste onto our brushes, give them a swish around our mouths, and rush out the door. And spending so little time on brushing, it goes without saying that most of us don't even bother to floss. 

A yearly checkup at your physician’s office usually consists of a complete body exam. They test your reflexes, monitor your pulse and blood pressure, run blood tests, and even take a urine sample. Along with all of these tests, they’ll ask you a whole host of questions about your diet, lifestyle, and mental health. During these physical exams, it seems like your doctor thoroughly examines your entire body, but how often do they look into your mouth and ask about your oral health?

One thing that people often forget is that every part of your body is connected to another part. That means that the health of one area directly affects the health of another. The same is true for the health of your mouth. When you have infections in your teeth and gums, they can quickly spread to other areas of your body, leading to new infections and other health complications.

Most people don’t know the surprising connection between the health of the mouth and the health of the body. Mounting research points to a correlation between poor oral health and diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetic complications, and dementia. If these health problems could be prevented through proper oral care, then why aren’t more doctors and dentists talking about this important topic? That’s what Dr. Charles Reinertsen has been wondering for years. It’s why he founded The Dental Medical Convergence in 2021.