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Oral disease is a chronic disease
How to treat tooth decay and gum disease, used to be quite simple. Since these diseases are caused by bacteria, I thought that antibiotics or antimicrobials could be used to cure them. However, after such treatment, there were many cases of relapse. What was the problem? Because you missed the point. The key word is that tooth decay and gum disease are chronic diseases, not just diseases that can be resolved with surgical intervention.
Let's take a look at how to manage diabetes and hypertension, which are two of the most common chronic diseases. If you have diabetes or high blood pressure, of course, you will be treated with medication, but you will also thoroughly explore your risk factors, improve your lifestyle habits, and change your lifestyle. And it's not a temporary end, it's a lifelong end. Even though oral disease is a chronic disease that needs to be managed in this way, it was not fundamentally resolved because it was a surgical procedure like applying ointment to a wound and applying a bandage.
Oral microbiome
Oral diseases are both chronic and closely related to cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, kidney diseases, and autoimmune diseases. How does what happens in your mouth affect your entire body? In the mouth, beneficial bacteria and harmful bacteria live together.
This ecosystem of microorganisms is called the oral microbiome. When the microbiome is out of balance, it causes inflammation and oral diseases. You know what happens first when your gums become inflamed, right? It's bleeding gums. Normally, all you care about is the blood coming out, but you should also be aware that harmful bacteria can invade your blood vessels through this area. This is because the area where the oral disease occurs can be an outpost for the enemy of harmful bacteria to enter our body.
The key to boosting oral immunity, chewing gum
So, how can we increase our body's immunity to prevent the invasion of harmful bacteria? Recently, medical scientists have been paying attention to saliva. If you think about it, your mouth is the first gateway for food or air to enter your body. Bacteria and viruses likewise often enter through the mouth. That's why the oral immune system, including saliva, is the first to activate the body's defense system.
Saliva secretes a lot of IgA (immunoglobulins) and other immune components. So, the more saliva is produced, the better the inflammation in the mouth heals and the better the immune system works. So if you can increase salivation, that's even better. The best way to increase salivation is to do mastication, that is, the act of chewing. If the jaw does not move, saliva is almost not secreted. Keeping the jaw and facial muscles active, such as chewing food, keeps the oral immune system active. That's why I recommend chewing gum, which can be done anywhere and at any time.
Mastication to chew gum not only produces a lot of saliva, but also stimulates the blood vessels in the brain as the muscles of the face contract, increasing blood flow to the brain. It also helps the brain to be active. Through this, it is known to maintain cognitive abilities and activate the brain. In particular, chewing gum is said to be more effective because it focuses more on the act of mastication than on the food.
However, there are some things to keep in mind when choosing chewing gum. Chewing gum that contains sugar is not going to help your oral health. If sugar-free gum doesn't taste too good, I recommend gum with xylitol. Tooth decay is caused by acids produced by tooth decay bacteria. Xylitol is a substance that caries bacteria cannot digest, so after eating xylitol, the caries bacteria cannot produce acid. That's why dentists recommend chewing gum sweetened with xylitol.
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