Preventing Alzheimer's: The Role of Oral Health

Preventing Alzheimer's Disease: The Role of Oral Health

00:00 Alzheimer's and Gum Disease Connection
Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and brain abscess. If you have gum disease, and particularly if you've had gum disease for 10 years or longer, you're 70% more likely to have Alzheimer's disease in your life.

00:15 Prevalence of Gum Disease
And how many of us have gum disease? 90% of the population. So, for the longest, we thought this was due to inflammation, and that is a part of it.

00:26 Testing for Pathogens
However, we now know more specifically that this inflammation and this disease process is driven by bacteria, pathogens, micro organisms that we're testing for in your saliva, in your spit, and these micro organisms are dangerous. Not all of them because we're looking at the good and the bad bacteria. We're looking at the favorable components of your saliva, as well as looking for these dangerous microorganisms.

00:55 Blood-Brain Barrier and Pathogens
If these bacteria and dangerous pathogens get into the bloodstream, we've talked about how they do get in the bloodstream, they can cross something referred to as the blood brain barrier. The brain has an extra layer of protection to keep things that are dangerous and harmful to the brain from getting across this barrier.
However, these pathogens that we're locating in the mouth, the dangerous ones that we know are implicated in Alzheimer's and dementia and brain abscess, can cross the blood brain barrier.

01:28 Reducing Disease Risk
And so if they're found, and if we can eradicate them, and we can, then your risk of Alzheimer's, and all of these other diseases, and vascular dementia, brain abscess are markedly reduced.

01:41 Ensuring Long-term Brain Health
So, we can use the test results to prevent diseases in the future, to treat and stabilize diseases that individuals currently have, and more importantly, to ensure you live a nice, healthy, vitally healthy, vibrant life, maintaining your brain function throughout your life for a very long time.

For more information, visit: https://thespittest.com