Physical Exercise And Your Oral Health

What impact does exercise and playing sport have on our teeth and gums?

It is widely accepted that a healthy lifestyle includes some form of exercise. This should be appropriate to your age, and for some people a steady walk or a gentle swim is just as effective as a powerful workout lifting weights would be for someone else. Not only can exercise release endorphins that make us feel better but also helps to pump blood and oxygen around the body more effectively.

While taking part in sports or exercise is definitely beneficial, there are a few things that anyone wanting to maintain healthy teeth and gums should be aware of to stop it potentially having a negative effect on them. In today’s blog, our Acton dental team offers some food for thought for anyone who takes part in sport or who exercises on a regular basis.

Dehydration

Anyone who takes part in any form of exercise will be aware that dehydration is something that they will have to deal with, even swimmers who are literally swimming in the very thing that their bodies are needing. Being dehydrated not only affects your performance and can even be very dangerous in some situations, especially on hot days. It also has an impact on your oral health too.

Saliva plays a very important role in our oral health. In addition to washing away food from our mouth after eating, it also helps to keep our mouths moist. This is important as a dry mouth provides a warm and dry environment in which bacteria will thrive and also removes the opportunity to flush this away. Having a dry mouth then means a growth in the number of potentially harmful bacteria which can go on to affect our gums, often leading to gingivitis and periodontitis. These not only often produce unpleasant symptoms such as sore gums and bad breath, but can, at an advanced stage, cause our teeth to become loose or fall out.

Make sure to drink plenty of water then when you exercise, ideally before, during and after.

Energy drinks

Leading on from the last section, patients of the Acton vale Dental Centre may already have read some of our blogs in which we discuss the use of sports/energy drinks. As we have just said, staying hydrated is very important, but water really is your best friend here.

Whether through taste, or due to heavy advertising, an increasing number of people are now consuming sports or energy drinks, often even those that go nowhere near any exercise equipment. While it might be understandable to think that you might get an edge by using these, the likelihood is that, for most of us, they will be of little benefit from that perspective.

What these drinks are likely to do though is to start to destroy your teeth. They are nearly always very high in sugar, but if that were not enough ,they are also usually highly acidic too. This acidity is thought to be responsible for an increased number of people attending dental clinics in the UK with eroded tooth enamel. The fact is that acidity of any sort will be harmful to the enamel on our teeth. The constant sipping of these make this even more likely.

Once tooth enamel is gone, it is gone forever and treatments such as the fitting of porcelain dental veneers is likely to be the only solution to the inevitable sensitive teeth that will follow. Stick with water and avoid this problem.

Damaged teeth

While it is unlikely that you will damage your teeth when jogging or in the swimming pool, many people take part in sports where contact is likely. Football is probably the most common of these at various levels of skill. The reality though is that it is not just sports such as boxing or rugby where a mouthguard should be worn. All it takes is a stray boot or elbow to make contact with your teeth to do a lot of damage. There is always a risk that you will lose some teeth or at the very least break some of them.

Naturally, if this does happen, we can help to restore them, but you might wish to discuss the possibility of wearing a mouthguard during games with our dentists. It might be a small price to pay for keeping your teeth intact.

Dental implant patients – a special note

Most of the above applies to patients with teeth implants as much as those with natural teeth, but there are special cautions which implant wearers should take note of, especially those with newly placed dental implants.

While implants provide a strong replacement for natural teeth, they are more vulnerable during the osseointegration phase which lasts around three months. Initial rest is important to set this process in motion, but after a few days or weeks, anyone who likes to be active might feel tempted to go back to what they used to do before.

While, after a while, sports like swimming or gentle cycling might be encouraged, it should be remembered that other forms of exercise that can cause the body to ‘jolt’ such as pounding your feet when running, can cause early stage implants to work themselves loose. If you wish to return to your chosen sport or exercise, please do talk to our implant dentist for advice before doing so in order to keep your implant safe and healthy.

It is important to remember that implants can also be damaged through contact sports and again, a mouthguard is recommended. If you are considering having implants though and currently play football for example, you may wish to postpone your implant placement until after you retire or take up a gentler sport with a lesser risk of contact. We know that this can be a difficult decision and our implant team members are always available for any questions like this that you might have.

If you play any sports or regularly do exercise and would like further advice about how to keep your teeth healthy while doing so, please do talk to us. For this or for any appointments etc, you can contact us by calling the Acton Vale Dental Centre on 020 8749 3267.