Poor Dental Health is Associated with Dementia

A study in Experimental Biology and Medicine has uncovered a connection between poor dental health and dementia, reports Yahoo! Finance . The researchers analyzed more than 200,000 new dementia cases registered in the National Insurance Database for the population of Taiwan. More women than men suffered from dementia, which appeared to stem from greater representation in the aging populace. Records from the prior decade indicated that dental procedures that quickly restored homeostasis reduced dementia risk, while a history of chronic dental problems raised it. "Good dental care and perhaps simple daily dental hygiene with regular brushing and rinsing with an antibacterial mouthwash may be a productive intervention, especially among populations already having increasing difficulty performing their own routine daily care," said the University of North Texas Health Science Center's J.L. Caffrey. "Second, the impressive analytical power of this broad database strongly suggests that a coalition is needed among patients, the medical/dental establishment, and major cloud-based enterprises to create an even better worldwide resource database to allow the research community to efficiently examine a wide spectrum of current and future public health issues with a never-before-realized confidence and precision."