Russia Today
Research has found that one of the “important” factors for adjustable longevity is brushing your teeth at a specific time of day.
“In the past decade, the impact of oral health on overall health and mortality in older adults has attracted attention,” the researchers wrote in a study published in the journal Aging.
They explored the association between dental and dental hygiene behaviors on all-cause mortality in 5,611 older adults from 1992 to 2009 and calculated risk estimates for men and women separately.
They found that brushing your teeth at night before bed was a “significant” risk factor for longevity, and what’s more, flossing every day and visiting the dentist were significant risk factors for longevity.
In addition, not brushing your teeth at night increases your risk by 20-35%.
Furthermore, never flossing increases risk by 30% compared to flossing daily.
Not seeing a dentist in the past 12 months increased the risk by 30-50% compared to seeing a dentist two or more times, and the mortality rate increased with the number of missing teeth.
The researchers concluded: “Oral health behaviors help maintain normal, healthy teeth but also appear to promote survival in older adults.”
A recent study published in the journal Community Dental and Oral Epidemiology confirmed these findings. The study looked at tooth loss and found that the number of teeth an individual has is significantly associated with life expectancy.
The results found that those with 20 or more teeth at the age of 70 had a much greater chance of living longer than those with less than 20.