How Immunity and Gum Disease Are Linked
Your body is a complex, interlinked group of working systems, and disease in one part of the body is often reflected in disease in another part. This is true too of your mouth, where gum disease has been linked to heart disease, and arthritis. The underlying mechanism has to do with your immune system, that group of blood cells, and bone marrow cells that defend your body against foreign invaders. Diseases of the immune system, where for example it is overactive or inflammatory, are reflected in diseases such as arthritis and diabetes. Correspondingly, inflammation in the mouth, such as gum disease, is linked to arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. Authors at the University of Pennsylvania have further discovered that these disease have a common link in the bone marrow. Your bone marrow houses many cells that are part of your immune system. Therefore transplanting bone marrow can lead to transplanting of immune disease as well. This sounds complicated, but just know that your body is a unified synthesis of many organ systems, and that keeping your mouth and gums in good condition can be reflected in better health elsewhere in your body and vice versa. (Source: Science Daily, https://bit.ly/3qyYlEv)
