Diabetes affects millions of people. 1 in 4 people do not know they have diabetes. More than 1 in 3 people are prediabetic.
To put an idea to how many people have diabetes, $1 in $5 healthcare dollars is spent on caring for people with diabetes.
Diabetes and mouth health are extremely closely related.
Let’s go through facts.
If you have diabetes, you are at much higher risk of having gum disease.
95% of people with diabetes also have gum disease.
Gum disease cause permanent bone damage and loss, people can eventually lose their teeth.
When you have diabetes, your immune response decreases. So when you have a lot of bacteria in your mouth, your body can’t adequately fight against the bacteria, resulting in bone loss and gum disease.
When you have inflamed gum and bacterial build up in your mouth, your body releases signaling molecules that cause inflammation throughout the body, which makes gum disease even worse.
Diabetic patients release even higher level of these inflammatory signaling molecules (tumor necrosis factor)
If you have diabetes and bleeding gum, your risk of premature death increases by 400 to 700 percent.
People with gum disease have more difficulty controlling their blood sugar level.
Diabetic patients with gum infection have 6-fold worsening of glycemic control. Infection causes release of stress hormone. This worsens insulin resistance causing bigger rise in glucose level and impairing body’s ability to use glucose for energy.
Remember how I said gum disease increases inflammation in the body, that also makes it more difficult to control blood sugar level.
The good news is proper gum disease treatment can result in better sugar level control, less inflammation, and even improvement on Hb Alc (which is a test that shows how well you control diabetes). It is a known fact that treating gum disease lowers annual medical expenses associated with diabetes.
Do you have diabetes? Do you have a family history of diabetes? Act now.
Take control and keep your mouth healthy so your body can be healthy.
