Why Is Dental Health So Important?

When people think about taking care of their health, it’s pretty natural that they will prioritize parts of their body over their teeth. It’s not difficult to understand – many other parts of the body are way more crucial to certain bodily functions. Nevertheless, it’s important to keep in mind that you cannot disregard dentistry entirely. Dental health is actually very important beyond the health of your mouth. Below are some of the reasons why.

Saliva Is Extremely Important

Not many people know about that, but saliva can be a very important diagnostic tool. By checking your saliva, your doctor could look for very specific substances in your body, which will help them get a clear picture of your current situation, and even look for certain underlying conditions. An example of that is using saliva to test the cortisol levels in newborn children, which can be a very good indication of how stressed out they currently are. Saliva can even be used to test for certain cancers, and HIV as well.

However, saliva does way more than help with diagnosing certain conditions. It plays an important role in protecting people from dangerous bacteria as well. In fact, saliva is the body’s first line of defense from many disease-causing agents, found a common cold all the way to HIV. Whenever a virus gets into your mouth, the saliva begins immediately attacking it. Not only does your saliva contain antibodies, it also has histatins, an important substance that inhibits the growth of some dangerous fungi. These are only some of the reasons why saliva, and in consequence, oral dentistry, is very important to your overall health.

Boosting Confidence And Self-esteem

Not only is oral health very important for the health of the rest of your body, it can have a positive effect on your mind, as well. Having imperfections on your teeth, or maybe some discoloring, can be a significant blow to certain people’s confidence, while on the other hand, having nice, clean, and beautiful teeth feels great, and it makes you look great as well. Oral dentistry does a lot to help fix imperfections in your teeth and give them the white glow back, making sure you have a great smile.

Protecting Against Very Serious Diseases

Again, you cannot overstate the importance of your mouth in protecting your body from serious diseases. If you don’t take very good care of your teeth, you are likely to get harmful bacteria in your gums and plaque, and these can spread to other areas of the body. The consequences don’t end there – according to certain studies, a gum infection significantly increases a person’s chance of getting diseases such as diabetes, preterm birth, and cardiovascular problems, and it can increase the severity of the conditions as well. If you want to protect yourself against disease, the simple habit of brushing your teeth daily and regularly visiting your dentist can be a great way to help.

Every single body part is important to our general health, and teeth are no exception. This is why are dentistry is so important. If you want to improve your dental health, give us a call at Modern Bites Dentistry today!