According to Glen Dental, memory loss isn’t just a, “Senior,” thing. In fact, recent studies indicate that poor oral health could be connected to not remembering where you put the keys, or where you parked the car.

Conducted between 1996 and 1998, the North Carolina at Chapel Hill department of ecology had a study for men and women between the ages of 45 and 64. The object of the study was to conduct data that could lead to a connection between mental and oral health. Memory and thinking skills were included in the testing as well as regular dental exams. There were nearly 6,000 women and men who participated in the study, which found an association between bleeding gums, tooth loss, and low results on the thinking tests.

The results of the study were astounding with what Brian Slade, one of the authors of the study said were amazing. Slade said, “We were interested to see if people with poor dental health had relatively poorer cognitive function, which is a technical term for how well people do with memory and with managing words and numbers.” “What we found was that for every extra tooth that a person had lost or had removed, cognitive function went down a bit. People who had none of their teeth had poorer cognitive function than people who did have teeth, and people with fewer teeth had poorer cognition than those with more.”

So what’s the bottom line? Brush and floss, eat lots of fruits and veggie and calcium rich foods and see your dentist in Glen View even if you think those 12 year old fillings are still, “Okay.” Old restorations could be cracked, chipped broken or leaking making you susceptible to pulp disease.

Although a study hasn’t been conducted yet, it would be interesting to see if Dental Implants could help with cognitive thinking and memory loss.

As the bone fuses to the titanium, doesn’t it make sense that because your body thinks that the dental implants are now with one would see an improvement in memory and cognitive skills? Only time will tell, but it does make for an interesting theory.

You may not be as sharp as a tack, but if you have been ignoring those bleeding gums or annoying toothache and you could be suffering from memory loss, it could be time to schedule an appointment with your Glen View Dentist today.