Fact: Tooth loss increases your Alzheimer's Risk...

Extracting a tooth creates a 1" deep hole from your mouth to your jaw bone.  And for an adult, this hole takes anywhere from 3 months to 1 year to fully heal...longer if your are older, longer still if you suffer from Diabetes. Net/net - tooth loss increases your Alzheimer's risk by creating (and leaving) an open access point to your body's blood supply for oral bacteria to go where ever your blood takes it.

So when you think about exposure, the longer it takes to close this hole, the more oral bacteria can get into your blood stream.  Especially when you consider that all along the inside of the extraction site there are small blood vessels that can transport oral bacteria out of the mouth and into the body and brain. More importantly, the jaw bone where the tooth gained it's blood supply is fed by arteries.  And no kidding: these same arteries also feed the brain.  

The healing time of an extraction site depends on a few factors: the type of tooth that's extracted, the trauma associated with the extraction (simple or surgical), and - you guessed it - your age.  

And to make matters worse, as the study above indicated, your risk of developing dementia (including Alzheimer's Disease) increases with every tooth you lose.  

And think about it - there are two things most people living in memory care share - dementia and dentures!  That's not coincidental.  That's a white flag waiting to be someone else's "aha moment".  It's certainly been ours.  

So consider this tip for Preventing Alzheimer's the next time you're at the dentist and there's a choice to save your tooth or have it pulled.

If having dentures  - and subsequently losing them at your nursing home - wasn't such a big deal, then Universities wouldn't be spending so much money trying to devise a better plan to find the dentures that...their AD patients keep losing.  This fact should be a signal to other researchers studying Alzheimer's Disease - that tooth loss must be an Alzheimer's Risk Factor.  And it is.  Our own research within the 10,000+ patient base that our dental clinic in Saint Paul Minnesota served proved time and time again that losing a tooth later in life was a great predictive factor for the development of dementia - including Alzheimer's Disease.  

This study  lends support to the fascinating association that tooth loss increases your Alzheimer's risk. The study's conclusion was that older adults that lose a tooth are particularly vulnerable to negative cognitive effects. 

Many adults lose teeth to injury or break down.  But Periodontal Disease (PD) remains the number one cause of tooth loss in the adult population.  In looking at Alzheimer's Risk Factors - you'll see that Periodontal Disease is in the top 5 comorbid  conditions for AD.  Why is that? Visit this article on the connection between tooth loss and AD

At some point, dentistry will need to address this connection between tooth loss and dementia straight on and begin looking for ways to substantially reduce the opportunity for oral bacteria to get into the blood stream following an extraction.  

One way is to shorten wound healing time.  

And not surprising, researchers are already discovering some exciting new options that one day soon may be available at a dental clinic near you.  

For one, Platelet-rich Plasma (PRP) is a very viable healing option, and now we are finding promising results with a new procedure using Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) in the extraction site to speed up wound healing.  This 2018 study found that "an appreciable wound healing and bone regeneration was seen in the experimental group when compared to the control sites where no PR was used substantiating the use of PRF as an inexpensive autologous material for socket preservation and future rehabilitation. The present study, also, showed that minimal operator expertise was required to conduct the procedure of PRF preparation and grafting when compared to bone harvesting from distant sites." The study noted that using PRF shortens the time between extractions and implant placement and eliminates the need for secondary procedures prior to final restoration.  

And something as simple as honey could be an option:  In this 2019 study using Honey as a wound-healing support after extractions, the significant healing observed caused the researchers to conclude:  "Honey resulted in a decrease in wound sizes and faster healing after extraction of teeth in children. Therefore, use of honey can be recommended after minor surgeries in the oral cavity."  

And for the slower healing diabetics, researchers in this 2020 study found that 0.8% hyaluronic acid placed in post-extraction socket in patients with poorly controlled diabetes may improve wound healing, especially in the first days after application.  As we learn more on this novel option to encourage wound healing (and therefore reduce risk oral bacteria translocating to the brain) we will likely share it in a future blogpost.

And as the world realizes that no mature tooth extraction is "simple" and that all extractions come with dementia risks, perhaps we will see even more inroads in extraction wound healing to come!

Our Minnesota Foundation - The Curing Alzheimer's Disease Foundation - is all about preventing Alzheimer's while the world works to find a cure.