Published on June 13th, 2012 | by James Johnson0
Proper Dental Hygiene Could Increase Cancer Risks [Study]
Brush your teeth properly and you could prevent cancer, that’s the finding from a recent study conducted in Sweden.
According to a report published in the June 11 edition of the BMJ Open online journal data was collected from 1985 and 2009 from 1,390 Swedish adults. At the start of the test all participants were screened for factors that might increase their risk of cancer and had their oral hygiene assessed. Over a 24 year period 58 patients died, 35 of who had cancer.
Researchers discovered that those who died had a higher level of dental plaque on their teeth than those who lived longer. In fact researchers found a “significant area of the gums covered in plaque” among cancer deaths.
The study found that the average female died at 61 and the average male passed away at 60. According to researchers females with good dental hygiene should have lived 13 years long and men should have lived 8.5 years longer.
According to one of the study’s authors:
“Based on the present findings, the high bacterial load on tooth surfaces and in gingival pockets over a prolonged time may indeed play a role in carcinogenesis.”
Researchers also believe gum inflammation may play a part in cancer development however a direct link has not been established at this time.
Other reports have recently linked certain cancers to oral plaque accumulation but questions still remain, for example Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society tells MSN Health:
“We only know how many people died, so we don’t know if there is an increase in the incidence of cancer among people with plaque, or if, perhaps, it renders them more susceptible to treatment-associated infection.”
In any case proper dental hygiene has been linked to blood clots and other issues.