Sports and oral and dental health
You may be astonished from the title of this article. Does sport affect and be affected by the health of the mouth and teeth as well?!! The answer is certainly Yes. As per our previous articles, teeth are one of the parts of the human body system, so it is adversely or positively impacted by the surroundings and followed habits. Like, the majority of our body organs, teeth are affected by sports, negatively or positively. Oral and dental health likewise also affects the performance of athletic.
The positive effects of exercise on dental health
- Avoiding gum disease (periodontics)
There are many research reports that have discovered that athletes and people, who exercise on a regular basis, have much lower rates of inflammatory symptoms than non-athletes and people who do not exercise at all. This underlines the fact that exercise is able to prevent the occurrence of severe infections in periodontal disease.
The ties between obesity, physical health, and periodontal infections had been also examined, and the research established that people with a low Body Mass Index and a High Rate of Oxygen Consumption while exercising have healthier periodontics.
- Promote oral health
Exercising helps in improving dental health by diminishing the risk of gum disease and improving on overall oral health. That is when one of us exercises, her or his blood flow increases, which in turn increases the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to your gums and teeth. That assists in maintaining your gums healthy and your teeth strong.
- Eliminating stress and anxiety
It is a steady fact that exercise has a significant effect in reducing the feelings of stress and to lessen bad or undesirable thoughts, which in turn pose a threat to our dental health.
- Reducing blood sugar level
Regular physical activity has a significant effect on governing blood sugar levels that may diminish the risk of gum disease and other oral problems.
The bad effects of exercise on dental health
- For oral injuries (oral trauma)
There is a vast majority of athletes, during their training or in sports practice, are subjected to the risk of getting any blow to their body. Either via individual mistaken actions, they expose themselves to injury, or they may undergo injury by others, including being exposed to any blow to the mouth, and this blow, could cause the fracture of some teeth. Consequently, dentists advise athletes to use mouth guards while doing their exercise.
- Tooth erosion
A recent report, available by the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, unveiled that people with physical activities, especially runners, have a higher risk of being subjected to tooth erosion.
The studiers compared the diets of 35 triathletes and 35 people who did not exercise, and concluded that the more exercise the person exercised, the less saliva he had. Refer to CNN.
It turns out that the higher the pH balance in the athletes’ saliva, the more this is one of the causes of what is called “runner’s mouth.” When exercising, sweating must increase, and the person resorts to breathing by his mouth, thus causing dryness in the body and mouth.
Saliva is essential for maintaining oral hygiene and protecting against the bacteria accumulation inside it, thus researchers advise to drink plenty of water while exercising, as it helps produce saliva.
The researchers highlighted the option of chewing sugar-free gum while performing exercises, for the saliva gland to be able to work again, and its secretion increases during this period, with the necessity to avoid eating sugars because they are a primary source of bacterial growth. “Source: elconsolto.com”
- Nutrition system for athletes
What takes athletes most attention is building muscle mass as quickly as possible, and this target drives some of them to perform random actions. However, some of these actions could lead to physical harm, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, or to abide by a careless diet and excessive consumption of nutritional supplements and energy drinks.
The effect of dental health on sports
In previous paragraphs, we communicated a little about the effects of exercise on dental health, but in this paragraph, we will summarize the effect of dental health on athletic performance.
Neglecting treatment of infected teeth causes their aggravation and the bacteria proliferation, and then the damage will spread beyond the mouth to other organs of the body such as the heart, muscles and joints, and this will surely echo negatively on the quality of sports performance because of the pain and movement problems that escort it. Other oral issues that impair athletic performance include malocclusion of the jaws, which causes imbalances, tension in the jaws allied with pain in the back and the neck, or poor chewing, that may cause declined energy in athletes.
