Semidey Dental Podcast
Welcome to "Semidey Dental," the podcast that delves deep into the fascinating world of oral health and its profound impact on your healthspan. Join us on an enlightening journey as we explore the intricate web of connections between your oral health and the health of your entire body.
In each episode, we'll unravel the latest research, expert insights, and personal stories to shed light on the link between your mouth and your body. You'll discover how your smile can lead to a healthier, fuller life.
Your hosts, Dr. Alex Semidey and Jeremy Wolf, will sit down with leading dental professionals, healthcare experts, and individuals who have experienced firsthand the transformative power of optimal oral care. Together, we'll bridge the gap between dentistry and holistic health, unveiling the role that your teeth and gums play in maintaining total body wellness.
For more information, visit: www.semideydental.com or call (954) 581-0120
Semidey Dental Podcast
EP #8: Gum Disease and Dementia: The Hidden Link You Need to Know
The intricate connection between your oral health and brain function might be the missing piece in understanding cognitive decline. In our latest deep dive, we explore the alarming relationship between gum disease and dementia that new research continues to uncover. What begins as minor bleeding during brushing could potentially contribute to serious cognitive issues later in life.
Your mouth harbors as many bacteria as your colon—a startling reality that underscores why dental care goes far beyond fresh breath and cavity prevention. When gums become inflamed and bleed, they create pathways for bacteria like P. gingivalis to enter your bloodstream and travel throughout your body, including your brain. Scientists are now finding these oral bacteria in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, suggesting a direct link between gum health and cognitive function.
For those already experiencing memory challenges or caring for someone with dementia, maintaining oral hygiene becomes increasingly difficult, creating a dangerous cycle where declining cognitive function leads to poorer oral health, which may then accelerate brain deterioration. We discuss practical solutions for caregivers, including specialized dental tools that can make daily care more manageable. From electric toothbrushes with enhanced grips to water flossers and interdental brushes, these adaptive approaches can help maintain oral health even as dexterity diminishes.
Prevention remains our most powerful tool. Early intervention in gum disease is highly effective and completely reversible, while advanced periodontal disease becomes a chronic condition requiring lifelong management. Alongside proper dental care, we explore complementary brain-health practices including physical exercise, continued learning, and meditation—all working together to protect your cognitive function for years to come. Whether you're concerned about your own health or caring for a loved one, understanding this mouth-brain connection offers a proactive approach to preserving quality of life and independence.
Register now RunYourMouth.org
Welcome to the Semide Dental Podcast. We're here to provide you expert insights on how dentistry can improve your quality of life and extend your health span. I'm Alex Semide and I'm a practicing dentist, and I'll be your host, along with Jeremy Wolf. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to Tribe to a new episode of the Semide Dental Podcast. Mr Wolf, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Living la vida loca. Last time I was living the dream, now I'm living la vida loca, living la vida loca. Always doing well, my friend Always.
Speaker 1:Ricky Martin in the 90s. Nothing better than that, yeah. So today we have a very important podcast, a topic that really hits very near and dear to my heart, and that is dementia and generally cognitive decline. And specifically today we want to talk a little bit about how your mouth actually plays a pretty significant role in that process. Um, more and more research keeps coming out as to the, the relationship between the health of our gums and the health of our brain, and we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, how that works, what we can do about it and some signs for caregivers and ourselves to look out for to. You know, if not altogether avoid cognitive decline, at least minimize it to improve our quality of life really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, speaking of caregivers, I just did earlier this week, a podcast with Comfort Keepers they do in-home care and we talked about this very issue. We talked about dementia and Alzheimer's and how that relates to the caregiver side of things. And this also hits hard for me as well, because I've had family members. My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's and I watched her go through a horrible cognitive decline and, if I'm being honest, I never even thought about the connection to your oral health and your mental clarity, and I know that's a big thing for you. So, definitely interested to get into this, why don't you start off by kind of distinguishing between dementia and alzheimer, and then we'll go from there?
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah. So dementia is kind of like an umbrella term for cognitive decline, right, and cognitive decline, we've all seen it, right, a little bit of memory loss, so maybe you have a loved one who kind of repeats the same story a few times or forgets where they put their keys, or you know that sort of thing and we, we generally just kind of chalk it up oh, they're a little bit older, maybe they just got a lot going on, right, and but that is generally what it means. And obviously that progresses and progresses to the point where, you know, it becomes very, very difficult for the patient and the people around them. And then Alzheimer's is a specific diagnosis, right, it's the most common type of dementia, so it's the one that we hear about the most. It affects 6 million Americans, right, which is a really sobering number, that's crazy.
Speaker 1:It really is, and the kind of the key hallmarks of Alzheimer's that we hear a lot about are these plaques in the brain, these protein tangles and ultimately like, like brain cell death and lack of function. Right, so that's what leads to the memory loss and, ultimately, loss of independence.
Speaker 2:So obviously, age and genetics play a huge component in this, as well as your lifestyle and how you take care of yourself. But what about oral health? Like inflammation and oral health, how is this playing into the propensity for the body to, or the mind to, get afflicted by these terrible ailments?
Speaker 1:to get afflicted by these terrible ailments. Yeah, so for a very, very long time we kind of had an idea of how the whole cognitive decline thing worked, but we still don't have a full grasp on it. We're kind of elucidating the process and figuring things out, and what we're learning is that inflammation plays a huge role in the whole process and with the mouth, specifically the, the bacteria that we have in the mouth. You know, the mouth is a very, very unusual location of the body, right, like it's inside us, but it communicates a lot with the outside world and and and what happens in the mouth doesn't? It's like the opposite of vegas, right? What happens in the mouth does not stay there.
Speaker 1:Um, so you have I've said this on the show before the bacterial concentration in your mouth is equal to the bacterial concentration in your colon. So that sink in for a second right means you have a tremendous amount of germs and bacteria in your mouth. Now, it is because of our modern diets super important to be on top of that of the maintenance that the mouth requires, right, because our modern diets are basically designed to help bacteria proliferate. Yeah, so we need to be very, very diligent with our brushing, our flossing or water, picking, our home care to minimize the amount of bacteria that we have in the mouth. Why? Very easy, because if you have a amount of bacteria that we have in the mouth, why? Very easy, because if you have a lot of bacteria in the mouth, that leads to inflammation. Right, a lot of bacteria is literally a low-grade, chronic infection of an area, right, so that leads to inflammation.
Speaker 1:That's where we start seeing gums get a little puffy, a little red, right, maybe you brush or floss and you see a little bit of pink in the sink right, a little bit of bleeding, and you don't really make a big deal out of it.
Speaker 1:But what's happening when you see a little bit of blood? Right, that means that some little blood vessel somewhere burst open and is letting blood out. Now, if blood can get out, that bacteria sludge that is happening there can get into your bloodstream and now it has free access to the highway throughout your body. Right, so we're finding Some of these, specifically a bacteria called P gingivalis. Gingivalis means gingiva, which literally means gum tissue. We're finding that bacteria in Alzheimer's patients brains, right, so that just goes to show that it is going in through the gums because the gums aren't healthy. We have a little bit of bleeding, bacteria gets in, it travels around, it literally goes to every single nook and cranny in your body and we keep learning more and more about how that gum inflammation has profound impacts in every corner of the body, including the brain.
Speaker 2:Fascinating stuff, speaking of the science, of it right, and clearly there's a lot of studies and work being done in this field. What are some of the new things that are coming out now? Because I got to imagine that, as AI just keeps getting more powerful and technology keeps increasing, we're going to have more solutions and more uh, more ways to deal with this stuff in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean what? What is AI going to to do in the next two, five, 10, 20 years? I mean, who knows right? But the amount of things that we see in the very near future are really powerful screening tools that are AI driven, spit in a little cup and we'll be able to run all sorts of tests on that saliva and see things that could be markers of early dementia, of early cognitive decline. And, you know, as the science progresses, we'll be able to figure out more and better ways of helping our brain withstand that assault right and stay healthier and functional longer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it makes so much sense on its face, right Like eat healthy, take care of yourself, exercise, right, do all the things that are going to optimize the machine which is our body.
Speaker 2:Yet we've talked about this so many times with everything we do, right Life happens.
Speaker 2:Right Things come up and it becomes difficult to maintain this stuff.
Speaker 2:One of the things I found interesting regarding diet as I get older, I'm just more aware of this stuff and I was thinking to myself like how important it is what we're putting in our body to fuel. And I went on chat and I said, hey, is there an app out there and I know I'm sure there is where you can kind of like do all lab tests and it will analyze everything and then give you like a specific, detailed breakdown of a diet that will, like it's customized for not just your age, your weight and all that kind of stuff, but actually your specific biomarkers. And that stuff exists, exists and there's companies out there doing that now and I can see a future where you know, obviously we don't want to get too too stuck to that. We still want to live our lives and we still want to have fun and do things, but if you want to live a long, productive life and a prosperous life and avoid these types of ailments, you have to start thinking about this stuff.
Speaker 1:It's so important to have these conversations, just to raise awareness, just to get people starting to think about it A hundred percent, and when it comes, I don't know about you, man, but when it comes to dementia and the whole cognitive decline thing, like it just terrifies me, it terrifies me and it's just you know like it is.
Speaker 1:It is a definite point of focus for me in my life to to do things that just improve my odds. Like you can't. You can't bulletproof yourself against it, right? There's all sorts of factors, like we're talking about. Genetics is a factor, lifestyle is a factor, environment is a factor, lifestyle is a factor, environment is a factor. But doing things like you were mentioning working out, eating a balanced diet, staying healthy but beyond working out your body, work out your mind, yep Right, continue learning, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. Let me add a caveat to that.
Speaker 2:Let me add a caveat to that. Sorry to cut you off, but doing uncomfortable things, but doing it intentionally, yes, not suffering involuntarily, right, because you've been hijacked, right, it matters, dude. Like if you need to learn a new task and this links directly into dimension and everything. Like, how many times do you lean into that and you get overwhelmed, right, your body throws up brain fog and you get clouded and you get frustrated and you're like I can't do this right now, right, and you have to step away from it. Like if you just go into that process with a totally different lens, by looking at like okay, that uncomfortability, that is the growth, that's what's happening. Your brain is rewiring itself in new and interesting ways that are trying to get you past that. And if you just look at that like this is part of the process, like I'm in it, this is fantastic, just claiming it like that in your mind, it's got all these different chemicals in your body.
Speaker 1:It's called cognitive load. Yeah Right, and it's important and actually let's let's talk a little bit about that, because I just read a study recently where they were tracking a bunch of college students and they broke them up into groups and you know, they gave them a task and some of the kids had to go about it the old school way, right, go to the bookstore, get a book, or you know, read the book and do a paper and do a paper. Some kids got to use Google, some kids got to use an LLM chat or whatever, and they were literally measuring how much their brains were working. And, no surprise, the more we start using chat to offload our tasks the less.
Speaker 2:Our brains are working y'all the more the light goes out internally. Yeah, you're like outsourcing the intelligence. That's dumbing yourself down.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so it is super important for us to be very intentional about working out our minds, right. And this isn't when we're retired and we're 65 and dementia is already like not knocking at the door but you know, into your living room, right. But when we're young, when we're in our 30s, 40s, 50s, right. Like, let's set ourselves up now To enjoy our 60s, 70s and 80s Right. Not be a burden to ourselves and to our loved ones.
Speaker 2:Speaking of the, the, the scary aspect of this like you, just when you and this has all happened to us, right you're like you go to the, you go to the fridge to get something and you open up the refrigerator and you forgot what you were there for. Like that just happens. Those are just like. I consider them brain farts, if you will. But like the other day I was driving home and I forgot where I was for a minute.
Speaker 2:Brother, again, I don't know if it was a one-off, I was on a road that I've driven down thousands of times and I got panicked for a minute. I'm like, holy shit, I thought about. This must be what it's like when you get older and you start getting dementia. When you get older and you start getting dementia, and if that becomes something that happens frequently, the only solace I can imagine in that is that at some point you just you stop trying to find it, you stop searching and you're just. You're just in the, you're just here, you're just like whatever, you know what I'm saying, like you're not trying to chase it all the time, but it's, it is frightening then it really is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you know it's really easy to chalk a lot of those instances up to. Well, shoot, I just have like a million balls in the air right, like obviously your brain can't multitask all the time. I think it's really important to not bury our head in the sand you know for what those instances might be telling us right. You know for what those instances might be telling us right and to be very vigilant for things not only with ourselves but with our loved ones, and, furthermore, to take those preventive action steps right as frequently and early as possible, so that, again, we can't bulletproof ourselves but we can improve our odds, which is what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me how fickle the mind can be when it comes to this type of stuff. Like, sometimes forgetting things is a blessing in disguise. I remember a year ago, two years ago, I was sitting down and I was preoccupied I think I've shared this story on the podcast before, at least with you. I was worried about something and it was like impending doom overwhelming me and I said, oh my God, I got to do this and I was just frozen with like fear of this thing that I had to do and for a moment I forgot what it was that I was worried about. It just totally escaped me. And then I got like panicked for a minute, like, oh my God, I forgot the thing and I realized how absurd it was. I was obsessing over a silly thought that came up with a thing that hadn't even happened yet that it maybe had to do. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't do it. Then I forgot it.
Speaker 2:Then I got up and I realized it's like meditation is so huge when it comes to this stuff. Right, coming back to present, learning how to. When emotions do flare up and you get overwhelmed by things, learning how to not ignore them but kind of acknowledge them and then just get yourself back to present, and I think that's really, really powerful practice. Obviously, exercise, diet, all this stuff we're talking about learning new things, but then also being still being present, unplugging yourself right, getting away from these damn devices that we're on all the time and just unplugging all that.
Speaker 1:There's just so much noise around us, right, that it's sometimes hard to process it and continually process it, right, just all the time. That's that's a really interesting point that you're making here and I you know thank you for giving me another radical to go down, but the the potential impact of meditation on cognitive decline, and what? Because it's I do. I do think it is a very powerful and beneficial habit to just try and quiet the mind and have a moment of peace, right, yeah, you know, but how does that compare and stack with cognitive decline? Would it help us? Would it exacerbate it? Would it help prevent it? Would it slow it down? I wonder how much research has been done on that, but I will look into it and I'll bring an update on the next show.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's been plenty of research done on this. Like all these tools, they all work incredibly well together, right? It's not like just don't do one thing, do a lot of different things, right, just and create habits and create routines. Actually, I don't like the word routine somebody. Somebody referred to it, uh, the other day, as as rhythms instead of routines. I think routines has the tendency to feel like I don't know just who, just who wants routine, but I want to get in a rhythm. Who doesn't want to be in a rhythm? Who doesn't want to be on rhythm?
Speaker 1:And that, folks, is the power of marketing and copyright. So let's talk about a few of the, of the, the, the key points that we can. You know that, things that we can do, obviously, you know the. The central theme of today's podcast is how your gum health will relate to, you know, the whole cognitive decline process. It has to do with inflammation, it has to do with our diet, it has to do with the bacteria in our gums. So if there's one key takeaway from today's episode, I want it to be that if you see Some bleeding in the sink, don't disregard it. Right, if you're not really concerned about the health of your gums, think about the health of your brain. Right, because those two things are are intimately linked. Right, and when we intervene early in the process of gum inflammation or gum disease, it is very predictable, very easy to cure and we can completely reverse that trend and get you healthy and in maintenance mode. And, like I always say, high five on the way out every six months when you come in for your cleaning.
Speaker 1:The problem happens as that early gum disease or gingivitis as it's called progresses and becomes periodontal disease. Now this becomes a chronic infection that is not curable. Right, it's manageable, but you are dealing with this infectious burden in your gums for the rest of your life, right? So early detection, early treatment when it comes to the health of your gums is super important. I really can't overstate that. So things like bleeding gums, bad breath that you can't quite pinpoint doesn't go away. Any redness or swelling go get checked out, right, visit your dentist and see what's going on. Get on top of it early.
Speaker 1:As far as caregivers go, this is the point that I want to make before we wrap up the show. It becomes very, very difficult for caregivers when patients start to go down that slope of cognitive decline, because all of those routines or rhythms start to become a lot more difficult, right, like as as our memory loss starts to progress. We some we have, you know, like physical limitations and dexterity issues. So what happens is like early stages, okay, like the gums are suffering a little bit. Now the patient isn't able to keep their mouths clean as well. So the gum inflammation and gum disease process progresses. Now it becomes worse, it starts affecting the cognitive decline, right, and it kind of works both ways.
Speaker 1:So it just kind of snowballs, right, yeah, and it's super important to equip these, these folks with the tools that they need To help, right, whether that be an electric toothbrush, whether that be a toothbrush with a bigger handle that they're better able to manipulate and, you know, get their mouths clean, are able to manipulate and, you know, get their mouths clean, getting them water irrigation like a water pick. They sell toothbrushes now that are ultrasonic with, you know, a water pick built in. Those can be very effective helping them floss using you know they're called proxy brushes. It's almost like, almost looks like, a little bottle brush that you use to clean in between your teeth. Those can be very effective and helping these folks keep their mouths as healthy as possible, because we know that that helps keep their brains as healthy as possible. Right, and the sooner we start that process, obviously, the better outcomes we have. Right, and the sooner we start that process obviously, the better outcomes we have.
Speaker 2:And it's never too late to start, right, no matter where you are in your journey. Maybe you're out there and maybe you haven't been to the dentist in years now. Right, you've got to start somewhere, so start there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, build build on that and that's all we could do. That is so definitely want to mention today the uh, the 5k that we have coming up. That will be january 10th, um, so spots are still available. The uh, the. The link to sign up will be in the show notes. You can visit it, run your mouthorg. All the information for the race is there.
Speaker 1:Uh, this year's race will be benefiting the Davie Women's Club, which we're very excited about, and it is brought to you by the Chamber of Commerce and 7A Dental. So we hope to see everyone out there. Again, it's January 10th. We can run, walk or stroll we also have virtual race if you want to do it from your couch or stroll we also have a virtual race if you want to do it from your couch. But we do hope that everyone joins us. We hope to have a great race. There's going to be music, there's going to be IV tents, there's going to be food trucks and all sorts of swag really cool t-shirts and medals and bags and things like that. So we hope to see everyone out there and thank you, mr Wolf, for another great show. Again, folks, if you see something in the sink, go get checked out. It's never too late and we hope to see everyone at the next show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just want to leave with this, you said you could at the race you could run. You could run, walk or stroll. Brother, we are going to fly we're gonna fly oh yeah, you are coming incoming PR all right, everyone take care have a great day.
Speaker 1:Keep smiling, folks. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Semide Dental podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and follow us on social media for the latest episodes. You can find us at Semide Dental. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We're always happy to help. Until then, keep smiling and stay curious.