While heart disease is much more known and feared, heart disease, tooth decay and sustained gum disease are classed as chronic illnesses - defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a disease process that often begins very gradually and then persists over a long period.
Why is this important?
Chronic diseases are not communicable - you don’t catch them from other people like you would a cold. Rather they either stem from within your own body or start with the transmission of something (like bacteria) that makes it possible for the disease to take root. In the case of gum disease, the bacteria that lay the foundations for gum disease *can* be transmitted from person to person, but a healthy body should be able to kill them off quite easily. If a healthy person is exposed to these bacteria, their body will be able to fight them off, their risk of suffering gum disease will be low and if any symptoms occur, they will be acute (short-lived in regular terms). On the other hand, an unhealthy body and poor dental habits often cannot overcome these bacteria and an acute (short term) problem, can develop into a chronic (long term) one.
What does this actually mean?
Your overall health, in particular your immunity, is directly tied to how well your body prepared is to fight chronic diseases. Problems like bleeding gums, or regularly dental cavities can be a direct marker for how well your body is able to combat chronic diseases. If you are not beating disease in your mouth, it's likely that you are not beating it elsewhere...
So here are some of the things you can look out for in your mouth, that will give you an idea of what else might be going on in your body.
