Brushing Your Teeth Regularly Can Be Linked to A Lower Diabetes RiskMar 23 2020

Using the Korean government health records and self-given reports, researchers used data from 188,013 men and women around 53 years old that didn't have diabetes. Of this sample size, there was more than 17% who had periodontal disease. Watching them for 10 years, 31,545 developed diabetes, which is about 16-17% of the sample size.

Apart from other variables such as age, gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, economic status, sedentary levels, etc., the researchers found that people that had periodontal disease had 9% more risk for developing diabetes in their lifetimes.

People who brush only one time a day, or not at all only have about a 3% more risk of diabetes than people who brush two times a day regularly. Those that brush three times a day have a 8% reduced risk! People that have lost 15+ teeth are associated with a 21% increased risk for developing diabetes.

Dr. Yoonkyung Chang, a professor of neurology at Ewha Womans University in Seoul said, “Frequent tooth brushing reduces local inflammation and bacteremia, and if good brushing habits persist for a long time, this can affect systemic diseases.” Of course healthy habits like eating right and exercising regularly have a bigger affect on diabetes control, but toothbrushing does have an impact.

info source: Nicholas Bakalar,NY TIMES;Frequent Tooth Brushing Tied to Lower Diabetes Risk