Not Brushing Teeth At Night May Increase Risk Of Heart Attack, Says Cardiologist

Not Brushing Your Teeth At Night May Make You Prone To Heart Attack, Says Cardiologist — Maintain oral hygiene to prevent heart attacks.

Poor dental hygiene may increase heart attack risk, says Senior Interventional Cardiologist Dr. Kaushal Chhatrapati.

It is recommended that we should brush our teeth twice a day, in the morning just after waking and at night just before bed. But what will happen if you don’t brush your teeth twice a day? Can it kill you? You will be surprised to know, it just might!!!

In a study published in the journal Nature, it has been found that hospitalized patients who didn’t brush their teeth twice a day (or never) had a higher cardiovascular death rate than those who brushed their teeth twice a day. This appeared logically sound, but the results surprised everyone. Surely brushing one’s teeth is hygienic, but how does it protect you from dying from a heart attack?

“This study does not give any answers but raises several possibilities,” says Dr. Kaushal Chhatrapati, MD DM, FACC FSCAI FESC, Senior Interventional Cardiologist.

The expert sheds light on how poor dental hygiene may increase the risk of heart disease.

Infrequent brushing and heart attack risk

A heart attack occurs when a layer of fat covering the walls of the arteries of the heart “tears”. In conditions where the body has an “inflammatory state” (that is there is a chronic infection or similar disturbance in the body), there is an increased likelihood that these fat pads (called “plaques”) rupture. Once these plaques in heart arteries rupture, the sticky fat comes out in the “lumen”(or cavity) of the blood vessel. This attracts platelets and stimulates the clotting of the blood. This causes clogging of the artery, forward flow in the artery stops, and the area of the heart supplied by that artery starts dying. In medical parlance, we call this a “heart attack”.

Let us see various mechanisms by which poor dental hygiene can cause this:

Poor dental health leading from infrequent brushing can cause tooth decay and loss. This impairs nutrition intake and causes death.
Infrequent brushing can skew the balance of good and bad bacterial flora in the gut. This can cause inflammation and acceleration of atherosclerosis and heart attack.
Lastly, chronic periodontal (gum and teeth) infections and inflammation can cause a chronic “systemic inflammatory state” in the body. This kind of smoldering inflammation can lead to rupture of cholesterol laden plaques and cause heart attacks.

In a nutshell, alteration in the balance of gut bacteria and stimulation of a “chronic inflammation” of the body appears to be the chief causes of why there is an increased risk of cardiac deaths in patients who do not brush twie a day.

Oral hygiene tips to prevent heart attacks

This is my advice as a cardiologist to patients to prevent heart attacks due to gum diseases:

Brush at least twice a day (preferably more). The ideal is morning, night, and after each major meal.
Do not neglect tooth decay and gum disease.
Get your teeth checked and cleaned at least once a year by a professional dentist.
Use electric toothbrushes which do a more thorough job of cleaning your teeth.
Floss at least once a day.

“Pay utmost importance to your oral hygiene. After all, you must have heard the popular saying: “Your smile is the window to your heart!”