2d • General discussion
Your gums are talking to your brain.
Gum disease raises your dementia risk by 70%.
And your dentist probably hasn't mentioned it.
Here's why oral health belongs in the brain health conversation:
Researchers found a gum disease bacteria called Porphyromonas gingivalis in 96% of Alzheimer's brains examined at autopsy. It shouldn't be there. This pathogen produces toxic enzymes called gingipains that damage the neurons responsible for memory and destroy tau proteins in ways that mirror what we see in Alzheimer's pathology.
Oral inflammation also keeps appearing in the same population-level data as high cardiovascular mortality. Not occasionally. Consistently.
That's not coincidence. That's a pattern worth taking seriously.
Here's what the evidence actually points to:
1. Oral inflammation is a visible early warning signal
↳ Most useful biomarkers require expensive imaging or bloodwork
↳ This one shows up at a routine dental exam that many people already get
↳ We have the signal. We're largely ignoring it.
2. The body doesn't work in pieces. Our healthcare system does.
↳ Cardiovascular, brain, and oral health share the same inflammatory pathways
↳ Chronic oral inflammation raises systemic CRP and cytokine levels
↳ Three specialties. One body. Zero communication between them.
3. Dental access is an invisible health equity problem
↳ Many high-cardiovascular-risk patients don't see a dentist regularly
↳ Cost, coverage gaps, or simply not knowing oral health matters systemically
↳ Oral inflammation goes undetected in exactly the people who need the signal most
4. The causal question is still open and I want to be honest about that
↳ Long-term studies confirming direct causation between oral health and dementia are limited
↳ What the evidence supports is strong biological association and plausibility
↳ But association this consistent still changes what I screen for
I'm not suggesting dentists become cardiologists.
I'm suggesting that when the same inflammatory signal keeps appearing alongside cardiovascular mortality and neurodegeneration, treating it as a separate dental problem is a choice our system is making for us. Not a scientific conclusion.
The cheapest, most accessible intervention in preventive brain health might be a dental cleaning and treating gum disease early.
Prevention doesn't wait for certainty. It starts with paying attention to signals that are already right in front of us.
📌 Follow Reza Hosseini Ghomi, MD, MSE for clinical brain health perspectives you won't find in a press release
💬 Has any doctor ever connected your dental health to your brain? I'm curious how often this comes up.
Citations: Dominy SS et al. Porphyromonas gingivalis in Alzheimer’s disease brains...Science Advances 2019.
Haditsch U et al. Alzheimer’s Disease-Like Neurodegeneration in Porphyromonas gingivalis Infected Neurons ...Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 2020.
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Your gums are talking to your brain.
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