Could your bad teeth and gum disease be causing your Alzheimer’s disease and poor health more generally? New evidence is suggesting that this may well be the case. Neglect of the oral cavity and our disinclination to visit the dentist might be making us all much sicker than need be. Bad bacteria burrowing below the gumline into the bloodstream could well be the cause of this killer that scientists have been scratching their heads over for years. It’s possible that gum disease affects your joints, gut and brain for worse outcomes than you can imagine.

“A century after Alois Alzheimer discovered the disease that bears his name, a central mystery remains. Despite decades of research, no one knows the ultimate causes of Alzheimer’s disease. Suspects have emerged, including genetic mutations, accelerated ageing, immune system dysfunction, and environmental factors, but researchers have not converged on an answer. Now a surprising new candidate is emerging: periodontal disease.”
–       Scientific American

Periodontal Disease Likely Bad Boy Causing Diabetes, Arthritis & Alzheimer’s

Those damn dentists were right, we all should have paid more attention to properly brushing our teeth and looking after our gums. Medical science is pointing the finger at gum disease as the breeding ground for a host of modern killers in the health space. Why didn’t we listen when we had the chance? Can we get our kids to not repeat our mistakes in light of this new evidence emerging out of the dark maws of the past. Ultimately, we only have ourselves to blame, as unpopular as that position may be. After all, dentists have been banging on about taking care of our teeth for a very long time. Deaf ears and an economy built on fast foods and processed foods full of sugar and shite have all contributed to where we currently find ourselves. There is a modern day scourge of Diabetes type 2, Alzheimer’s disease, and Arthritis happening in our communities.

“Periodontal disease has been strongly tied to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and pre-term births. The links to Alzheimer’s are less well established, but evidence is accumulating. Periodontal disease may also exacerbate or even drive other common conditions, according to recent discoveries, including rheumatoid arthritis, colon cancer and other gastrointestinal disorders. “These discoveries have sparked a new way of thinking about these diseases and their mechanisms,” says Richard Lamont, a professor of oral immunology and infectious disease at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry.”
–       Chronic Gum Disease May Harm Brain, Joints and Gut, Scientific American

Gum Disease & Diet Dealing Deadly Hand Via Diabetes, Colon Cancer & Alzheimer’s

Human beings are a rich mix of a few very brilliant and a plethora of the largely unquestioning, which results in the health outcomes we currently face. In the West, populations are literally eating themselves to death via overeating and the crap they consume. Biologically, our teeth have slowly evolved in comparison to where we find ourselves dietarily today. Wisdom teeth are evolutionary hangovers from times when we required much larger jaws to eat the kind of things available back then. Our guts are still best served by diets containing large amounts of fibre but we consume heavily processed foods missing such ingredients. Good bacteria in the gut feeds on fibre via green leafy things and this benefits the optimal working of our metabolism. However, many of us consume predominantly processed meats, processed carbohydrates, and sugary/alcoholic drinks to the detriment of our health. The result is a succession of bad health outcomes which share chronic inflammation as a key symptomatic indicator. Bad diet and gum disease are like the perennial chicken and egg in this equation.

Joints Jacked By Gingivitis In Double Whammy

“Researchers have developed a ‘two-hit’ model to explain how periodontitis could potentially cause the joint disease. The first hit is chronic inflammation—in which a prolonged immune response to periodontal bacteria in the mouth and bloodstream leads to systemic inflammation. This is followed by a second hit, such as trauma to the joints. This double whammy seems to spark the development of autoimmune antibodies that attack the body’s joints and tissues, says Iain Chapple, professor of periodontology at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. This leads debilitating rheumatoid arthritis symptoms, such as painful swelling, joint deformity and damage to a wide range of the body’s tissues, including the heart, skin, eyes and arteries.

P. gingivalis also seems to make joint tissue more susceptible to the new antibodies. It produces an enzyme that partially alters proteins by converting the amino acid arginine into citrulline, a process known as citrullination, Lamont says. “Essentially, this paints a bullseye on the protein’s back that labels it as potentially foreign, causing the antibodies involved in rheumatoid arthritis to mount an attack on the body’s own proteins.”
–       Chronic Gum Disease May Harm Brain, Joints and Gut, Scientific American

By Golly It’s Gum Disease & Gut Stuff Microbiome

It’s possible that gum disease affects your joints, gut and brain in a triple treble terrible outcome. Interestingly, we, as human beings have split everything up into specialised studies but are now discovering that in nature it all comes together when it comes home to roost in our demise. Dentistry studies and the profession are coming into contact with a number of medical conditions on the basis of the information coming to hand. The microbiome, which is the term used to describe the gut environment where microorganisms do their metabolic business, has become a new focus of medical science. New knowledge is coming about through study and research into the microbiome and its influence on our physical health and wellbeing.

AI, The Food We Buy & Eat – Human Decisions

The food that we consume impacts directly upon our health, especially in terms of gum disease, plus the dietary effect on conditions like type 2 diabetes and colon cancer. Smoking and drinking a lot of alcohol and sugary soft drinks is bad for all of the above conditions. Economically, we live in a world where the manufacturing, distribution and promotion of foods is achieved via a capitalist free market system. Profitability is the overriding element in this economic system. The market, supposedly, decides what foods and drinks prove popular at particular price points. Human beings no longer have much contact with how their food is grown and made. Going into a shop or supermarket is, generally, the extent of most people’s interaction with sourcing their food. Convenience and fast foods are the major overarching trends in food choices commercially in urban settings. Indeed, everything is about convenience in this day and age. Technology is devoted to providing ever greater convenience within our capitalist economies. Funnily enough food tastes better when one has worked up an appetite. Hard physical work, however, goes against the trend of the last hundred years or so. AI is joining the automation of our lives, where human beings do less and less whilst machines do more. Now human beings will not even have to think for themselves anymore, as an AI will do it for them.

Perhaps, someone might ask AI whether producing and selling all this unhealthy food and drink to human beings is a good thing in light of all the disease resulting from its consumption. However, this is unlikely because human endeavour is forever split into untold strands of activity and little intelligence is brought to bear in any wholistic sense to the overall effect of all this activity. Governments are supposed to offer such insight but they are undermined by special interest groups and thus prove ineffective in the main. Neoliberal economic thought has driven most Western economies over the last 40 years and for these experts the markets always knows best. Well, the market has delivered us gum disease, diabetes, colon cancer, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s in spades for hundreds of millions of people. If you want answers to why everyone is getting sick with these diseases – we are what we eat. Oh yes, for Pete’s sake brush your teeth and visit the dentist before it’s too late!

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