Avoid Early Death By Cleaning This Part Of Your Body

Avoid Early Death By Cleaning This Part Of Your Body

According to a new study conducted by Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, brushing your teeth more than two times a day significantly reduces the risk of heart failure—over ten percent, in fact.

By assessing more than 160,000 participants between the ages of 40 and 79—none of them having a prior history of heart failure or atrial fibrillation, a condition which causes an abnormally rapid heart rate—EWU’s team of researchers set out to determine if improved oral hygiene could decrease these serious heart health risks.

After gathering the participants’ data from the Korean National Health Insurance System and conducting a baseline routine medical assessment between the years of 2003 and 2004, the individuals were followed up with routinely—with any changes in weight, height, lifestyle, illnesses and oral hygiene being recorded—for an average length of the next ten and a half years.

The study, published by European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, revealed that three percent of participants experienced atrial fibrillation and five percent developed heart failure over the course of EWU’s extensive research. With these results, researchers surmised that brushing three times or more each day could be credited with lowering the risk of atrial fibrillation by 10 percent and the risk of heart failure by 12 percent.

Acknowledging that the data set was made up solely Asian participants, the number of individual dental visits were not kept track of, and dental X-rays were not utilized to check for pre-existing dental gum disease, the authors of the study argued that rigorous brushing significantly reduces the amount of bacteria typically found between the teeth and the gums, thus preventing that bacteria from entering the bloodstream.

Additionally, the Oral Health Foundation recommends brushing one’s teeth at some point during the day and again right before bed.