The
International and American Associations for Dental Research recently
published an article linking dental health to dementia and Alzheimer’s
disease. Researchers have studied the link between dental health and
conditions like diabetes, pulmonary disease, pregnancy complications,
heart disease and stroke for years, but this is the first time they’ve
seen a possible link to brain functions.
According to the
report, investigation on animals showed that masticatory dysfunction
caused by the extraction of molars or soft-diet feeding induces
changes in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. This, in turn, can
lead to some learning and memory loss. In humans, neuroimaging studies
have shown that the act of chewing causes increased blood flow to our
brains and that the regions of the brain linked to our memory and
learning processes are therefore activated.
Dr. Russ Dunkel
of Dunkel & Kraklow Quality Dentistry in Greenfield, an adjunct
professor at the MATC School of Health Sciences and former clinical
instructor at the Marquette University School of Dentistry, says the
link between dental health and dementia may also be related to
systemic inflammation. "Periodontal disease, for example,
provides a definite inflammatory response, and this can contribute to
vascular pathology, with the potential to impact brain function,"
he adds.
Before you run
out and buy a big box of chewing gum, Dunkel warns that there is a bit
of a chicken and the egg syndrome happening here. "It is
difficult to know if the tooth loss and pathology lead to the dementia
or vice versa," he says. "For example, patients with
dementia usually have poor dental hygiene, which leads to tooth decay,
and periodontal disease, which can thereby make the dementia worse.
However, on the reverse side, if the individual has significant dental
infection, this can lead to systemic inflammatory responses that can
impact the brain. There is some interesting research being conducted
to identify the mechanism by which periodontal inflammation
exacerbates cognitive and neurological pathologies linked with
Alzheimer’s and dementia."
Regardless of
what starts the process, there is some good news. It appears some of
the lost cognitive function can be recovered with better dental
health. "Removing the infectious inflammatory processes via
dental treatment can lead to reducing the systemic inflammatory
responses, thereby reducing the vascular pathology and improving blood
flow to the brain," says Dunkel. Simply put, better dental health
leads to better blood flow to the brain, which means better cognitive
function. And who doesn’t want that? m