Understand The Dangers With Smoking And Oral Health
Among the top bad habits that many people have learned to acquire, smoking is perhaps the worst. Most especially cigarette smoking. If having stained teeth is just the bad side effect of smoking, it would not have caused much concern in the medical field. But we all know that is not the only thing that we should be worried about. Smoking and oral health do not mix, because the result would be devastating to our health.
Dentists like Dr. Jonathan Hartley have long advocated that people should stop smoking because of its many ill effects on the health. Some of these include cancer (particularly oral cancer), heart disease, emphysema, kidney disease, and even infertility. Even studies have shown that of all the smoking-related diseases, the major cause of death among smokers is heart disease.
These are based on facts, from researches and studies conducted by various medical institutions to help solve the problems of smoking and oral health, to be exact. Periodontis, a kind of gum disease that causes the gums to deteriorate, is among the top diseases that can be connected to smoking. Studies have shown that around 17 percent of smokers suffer from periodontis. But that is not all. Quite alarming is the fact that smoking can severely damage our immune system, making us vulnerable to a number of diseases and viruses.
But these are not the only health problems that smokers can experience. In fact, there is a myriad of diseases that should have been enough to scare everyone from even thinking about smoking. Among the most deadly disease is the mouth cancer. This is actually hard to detect especially during its early stages. That is why dentists like Dr. Jonathan Hartley fervently recommend that people should regularly visit their dentist and undergo at least the basic dental check ups.
If there are deadly diseases caused by smoking, of course there are those that are less scary but still imposes some problems. One is bad breath which is very common among the chain smokers. All of us know at least one person who is a smoker whose breath constantly smells like cigarettes or something else that is foul.
When a person has finally decided to stop smoking, dentists often will suggest that he start to increase the number of times that he brushes or floss his teeth. The reason behind this is that these dental activities can help prevent any further damage to the teeth and the mouth that might have already been started by too much smoking. In addition to this, certain research studies have shown that with the increase in brushing and flossing, the desire to smoke lessens.
Does smoking really provide more benefits to the smoker that he or she would totally ignore the facts and the data supporting the health hazards as stated by the medical professionals? There should be no reason why a person should smoke considering that the health problems related to it far outweigh any of smoking’s good points, if there are any to begin with. Dr. Jonathan Hartley and all the other dental practitioners continuously encourage people to stop smoking and to start their regular habit for a better dental and oral hygiene.
