Mouth sign that could be a red flag for heart attack, warns expert

A renowned surgeon and dental health specialist has revealed that a sign in your mouth could be a significant indication of impending heart difficulties.

Dental health issues lead to inflammation which eventually leads to cardiovascular diseases and heart conditions, as per the revelation on Zoe podcast by Dr Alp Kantarci.

The medical expert further explained that gum disease significantly influences stomach microbes and overall body health, leading to serious inflammation this puts immense strain on the body. He outlined how heart attacks and strokes occur and stated: “Most of the cardiovascular diseases or cardiac diseases are the results of your blood vessels, mainly aorta becoming clogged and the aorta is the major vessel coming out from your heart and distributing all the blood to that. That’s where you get the cardiac arrest.”

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He went on to describe the aorta’s function and how its blockage can trigger a heart attack. “The aorta is like a hose and it comes all the way from your heart and goes into the rest of your body.

So that hose is now being blocked by the lipids, by the fat layers internally, that cannot really pass through. That’s where you’re going to get a heart attack because if one of these blockage reaches to your heart and then it actually causes your heart not to function, then you’re going to heart attack.”

Dr Kantarci highlighted the dangers of fat deposits, or lipids, in the body, explaining that if they break free from the aorta and hit another organ, they can cause a stroke.

He described a thrombus as a healthy response to injury intended to prevent further bleeding but warned it could “go anywhere, it can clog any part of your body. It can basically cause you to get paralysed and, and so forth.”

He emphasised the significant impact oral health has on this process: “So this is a process that can be completely aggravated and got worse by the gum disease through two mechanisms.”, reports Gloucestershire Live.

He outlined the dual benefits of treating gum disease: “So you treat two things. Number one, you reduce the bacterial load by treating gum disease. But the second one is that you’re also reducing your inflammatory burden on your body by treating gum disease.”

Dr Kantarci previously mentioned that the inflammation caused by gum disease exacerbates conditions like diabetes.

He explained the connection between oral health and diabetes management: “So your inflammatory burden is one of the reasons why your diabetes gets worse. Your blood sugar goes up, your haemoglobin A1C levels go up and your response to diabetic treatments or diabetic drugs and so on and so forth will be completely impaired.”

Dr Kantarci concluded with a powerful statement about the role of dentists in overall healthcare: “This is the humbling moment that the dentist becomes a part of the medical team because we’re not treating diabetes.”

“We treat our own diseases. We treat our teeth, we treat our gums, we treat our oral cavity, but we can help our medical colleagues treat their patients better if the patients are treated by us too.”

Zoe podcast CEO, Jonathan Wolf, emphasised the importance of dental care by saying: “Well, I think everybody is going to be listening to this and thinking, I think I need to look after my teeth better than perhaps I thought 24 hours ago.”

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