Bad Dental Hygiene, Too, Now Linked to Oral Cancer
Here's another reason to take care of your teeth. Oral cancer. Studies are now showing that something as simple as swollen gums, gum disease and missing teeth can open the door to the human papillomavirus (HPV) that's been shown to cause oral cancer. HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, causes cancers of the cervix, mouth and throat, according to Catherine Saint Louis at nytimes.com. She writes that people with common dental infections are more at risk of developing HPV. But some experts say it is too early "to say with confidence that brushing and flossing regularly can prevent oral HPV infection," Saint Louis notes, or that bad dental health and HPV are even definitively related. Still, “Poor oral health is a new independent risk factor for oral HPV infection and, to our knowledge, this is the first study to examine this association,” newswise.com quotes Thanh Cong Bui, Dr.P.H., postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Public Health at the Universit...