How Can Poorly Controlled Diabetes Affect Your Dental Health?

Diabetes has become a global epidemic with a rapidly increasing number of patients being diagnosed across the globe. It could be a sign of the changing food habits where fast food, sugary drinks, and processed meals have become more and more common. While diabetes is a big problem in developed nations like the U.S.A, it is developing nations like India and China that have a third of the world’s population between them — and an ever-increasing thirst for fast food is fast making them the epicenter of this diabetic pandemic.

So what does diabetes have to do with your dental health?

A whole lot as it turns out. Diabetes has an extremely close relationship with the teeth and can both affect the health of the oral tissues and be affected by their health in return.

Diabetes And Gum Health

The strongest relationship between diabetes and oral tissues is seen in the gums. These seemingly insignificant pink tissues surrounding the teeth can actually add up to a lot of surface area when taken together, about the size of your fist.

Gums can become inflamed due to poor oral hygiene and develop "pockets" where harmful bacteria thrive and further increase the process of inflammation. As a result, inflammatory cells and products are released all over the body.

One of the effects that these cells have in the body is to affect the receptors involved in transporting sugar from the bloodstream into the various organs and tissues to be used as an energy source. By hampering this transport of glucose, the inflammatory cells originating from gum disease can directly worsen the most common reason for the development of diabetes.

What is even more troubling is that the chronic nature of gum disease makes it more likely to affect the long-term control of diabetes as measured by the HbA1c levels. These levels are the most accurate predictors of health in a diabetic patient.

This relationship also works the other way round. Diabetic individuals have a compromised immune response to infection and this is why they are prone to the rapid spread of even minor infections. The bacteria which cause gum disease are present in the mouth in small numbers in almost everyone. For these harmful bacteria to thrive, their numbers must be significant, and they need to be met with poor oral hygiene and a compromised immune system.

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A diabetic individual may have only mildly poor oral hygiene but yet suffer from severe gum disease because the body’s immune system is not able to fight off these harmful bacteria, allowing them to increase in number and cause rampant gum disease.

Of course, the caveat here is that even a poorly controlled diabetic individual needs to have the presence of harmful bacteria caused by poor oral hygiene for the disease to spread. If they are able to practice immaculate oral hygiene then they are not going to be affected by gum disease at all.

Diabetes And Its Effects Oral Tissues

Diabetes And Tooth Decay

One of the side effects of having poorly controlled diabetes is that the level of sugar in the saliva also changes. This increase in sugar changes the ecosystem of microorganisms living inside the mouth and allows more decay-causing bacteria to start to grow. There is also a change in the acidity levels of the saliva, making it more acidic and promoting the destruction of the teeth.

There are abundant statistics to show that poorly controlled diabetic individuals are significantly more likely to suffer from tooth decay than well controlled diabetics and non-diabetic individuals.

Diabetes And Fungal Disease

Oral fungal diseases are almost always seen in individuals that are suffering from some other debilitating disease because of which their immune system is compromised. They are called as opportunistic infections that spread rapidly in individuals incapable of fighting off the threat.

Candidiasis is the most common kind of fungal infection that is reported in diabetic individuals and is characterized by the presence of whitish discoloration in the inside part of the cheeks.

These fungal diseases are mild in nature and resolve easily through the use of anti-fungal drugs and bringing the diabetes under control.

Diabetes And Peri-Implantitis

Dental implants have become the choice of treatment to replace missing teeth and since Diabetic individuals are more likely to lose teeth due to gum disease, it is extremely common for them to get dental implants.

Here is the thing to remember. Implants are integrated into the underlying bone in a different manner from the tooth and are actually more prone to destruction due to inflammation. Thus, poorly controlled diabetic individuals are at a great risk of losing their implant retained restorations if they do not take adequate care of their health.

Of all the risk factors for the loss of dental implants, diabetes and smoking were found to be the most strongly associated. A combination of smoking and diabetes was found to be cumulative in nature and this group of patients has the worst success rate of dental implant restorations.

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Well Controlled Diabetics And Oral Diseases   

A clear distinction needs to be made between poorly controlled diabetics and well control diabetics when it comes to all diseases, not just dental diseases. If diabetic individuals are able to practice good dietary habits, follow a recommended exercise regimen and take their drugs on time then their body will respond in the same manner as a non-diabetic individual.

Just having the diagnosis of diabetes does not make a person more prone to developing diseases, however, not being able to take care of the condition does.

Conclusion

Diabetes is a chronic condition that diagnosed individuals have to live with for the rest of their lives. It has numerous effects on different parts of the body and the oral tissues are no different. This particular effect on the gums and teeth though has been ignored by the doctors as being non-life threatening, but now as the focus on quality of life has increased, the importance of educating patients on this aspect has increased as well.