Oral Hygiene Center

IN SUMMARY....: Imagine having the door of your house always open. Imagine that, even if you don't want to, a large number of individuals who are not always friends enter the entrance of your house where they start to cause damage (if you let them). Imagine that they then also enter the rest of your home, creating damage and often destruction everywhere that you would never have expected and imagined they could cause! These individuals are the "BACTERIAL PLAQUE", and the house is "YOUR BODY".

So our mouth is like a real "MIDDLE-EARTH", our body's largest entrance to the outside world. Precisely for this reason it is "constantly controlled by the body's defenses, i.e. by immune structures developed through evolution, the Waldeyer Ring". They are sentinels who analyze the liquids, semi-solids and gases that enter and serve us to live, because with them also always enter "countless "BACTERIA and VIRUSES", and limited "YEASTS (FUNGI)".

BACTERIA - In this "MIDDLE EARTH" bacteria, living organisms that reproduce autonomously, find an ideal cultivation medium to live in, because it is warm, it is humid, and because they can hide in many small ravines where they find residues of our foods with which they feed and reproduce quickly. The mouth is always full of bacteria present on all its surfaces, on the lips, tongue, cheek mucosa, palate, gums, and on the teeth, because bacteria are everywhere around us.

BACTERIA feeds on what we feed and eat. So if we do not remove food residues well, we allow them to reproduce in the mouth and colonize all those parts where they can reach. In fact, these microorganisms, staying in the mouth, enter the body both through the oral mucous membranes and by passing through the Oropharynx behind the mouth and the Nasopharynx behind the nose, heading towards many of their target organs such as the Heart, the Lungs, the Kidneys, the Brain, Liver, Bones, Placenta of pregnant women, literally everywhere. In practice, all the bacteria that our immune defenses are unable to kill can go on to create colonies and foci of infection everywhere, with damage that we know well by the name of "INJURIES" and "DISEASES", to the point of creating serious and fatal problems. In fact, there are evident connections between the presence of bacteria and bacterial infections in the mouth and diseases such as Diabetes, Cardio-Vascular Diseases, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Respiratory Diseases, Kidney Diseases, Hepatitis, Osteopenia, with even severe effects on Pregnancy, and important connections with Cognitive and Neuro-degenerative Diseases such as Alzheimer's, Stroke, Multiple Sclerosis. And also with various types of Cancer of the oral cavity and in the body. (Examples of very dangerous bacteria are: Porphyromonas Gingivalis, Klebsiella Pneumoniae, Fusobacterium Nucleatum, Escherichia Coli, Tannerella Forsythia, Staphylococcus Aureus, Treponema Denticola, and many others... ) .

VIRUSES - Even for Viruses the mouth is often just a "MIDDLE EARTH", a place of quick transit from which to start to reach their target organs in the body, often those we have just already listed. However, VIRUSES are not living organisms, nor are they capable of reproducing like bacteria. They are nanoscopic multi-shaped protein boxes, much smaller by 10 to 1000 times, containing a strand of DNA or RNA, in practice they are "FRAGMENTS OF LIFE IN SEARCH OF A BODY". In fact, to reproduce they need to enter cells and use their reproduction system, enslaving them to be replicated infinitely, until they die when they have now become just reservoirs full of hundreds, thousands of viruses. Once their mother cell is destroyed, they spread around and everywhere, attacking other cells near and far in their target organs (see the COVID-19 virus, SARS-COV-2, which once arrived in the respiratory system, attacks and infects the superficial cells of the bronchi and lungs), starting the same behavior again: 1-enter, 2-be reproduced infinitely, 3-kill the mother cell and 4-attack others. 

Sometimes this viral attack also occurs in the mouth in a way that is favourable to us thanks to "Bacteriophage Virus" against some Plaque bacteria that are extremely harmful to us such as Klebsiella Pneumonie and Escherichia Coli, which kill them to reproduce. We are studying how to use them in the most favorable way for us.

YEASTS - By YEASTS we mean above all FUNGI or MYCETES, which like Bacteria are unicellular organisms that enter and reproduce quickly, and if not controlled by an efficient immune system can cause Mycosis of the oral mucous membranes, the one that most commonly It is called Oral Candidiasis.

When we let the BACTERIAL PLAQUE live undisturbed, it organizes itself by taking small molecules of Calcium and other minerals present in the saliva to build increasingly larger, harder and strongly adherent Aggregation Centers to the teeth, the "TARTAR", concretions that no one can remove with normal hygiene tools that we have at home.

This happens first and most frequently in the Gingival Sulcus, that very small natural ditch of +/- 2 mm. surrounding the teeth. There the bacteria can hide and take refuge where neither the cheeks nor the tongue can enter, and where unfortunately often not even toothbrushes, proxibrushes and dental floss can clean well. Once the first thin layer of calculus has formed, the bacteria continue to thicken it for more or less 10-20 days between formation and mineralization. From this location they continuously attack nearby cells of the gum and bone. This stimulates the more or less prompt response of our immune system, which reacts with an initial inflammation of the attacked tissues (swelling, redness and bleeding). But when the problem increases and their number becomes uncontrollable by our defenses which can do little, some of them begin to increasingly destroy everything around the teeth. In this way "Periodontal Disease" begins, that is, that of the bone and gums around the teeth, an often silent disorder, but which progressively creates serious damage to your ability to chew, speak, smile and, as we have already explained clearly, to the health of your body in general. This must be understood well! It's always better to keep your mouth clean, because that's where so many of our health conditions and problems arise.

Think about it. Where were you swabbed to see if you had COVID? In the nose and mouth, because these are the largest doors of the body, the "MIDDLE EARTH" of Viruses and Bacteria that create many more or less serious diseases.

ORAL CAVITY BACTERIA AND SYSTEMIC DISEASES

Gao L et al. Oral Microbiome. Protein Cell. 2018;9(5):488–500.

CARIES IS AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE, AND IS TRANSMITTED WITH SALIVA.

"Caries is a chronic-degenerative infectious disease with a multifactorial etiology. It affects approximately 80% of the population in developed countries and is formed due to an initial process of demineralization of the hard tissues of the teeth (enamel, dentin), due to acid production of bacterial plaque present on tooth surfaces". (Ministry of Health. www.salute.gov.it)

The progressive destruction that results can demolish the structure of the entire tooth, infect the nerve, and deeply colonize the bone at the apex of the root, creating abscesses that destroy the bone around the tooth, until it is lost. Only some types of bacteria that produce acidic substances are responsible. The normal, neutral pH of saliva is 6.5 - 7.5. The most active strain among these bacteria is Streptoccoccus Mutans, which, thanks to its ability to mutate when it reproduces, does not allow the construction of a specific vaccine that can permanently destroy it.

"Among the various bacteria resident in the oral cavity, Streptococcus Mutans is among the most cariogenic species because it produces, from the carbohydrates present in the diet, an adhesive substance, insoluble in water, which adheres to the walls of the teeth and at the same time attracts other microorganisms, creating colonies of bacteria that feed on sugars and produce acid waste.

AFTER 2-3 HOURS after the meal, bacterial islands form which spread like a leopard over the entire surface of the tooth.

AFTER 12 HOURS, the tooth appears entirely covered by a bacterial film of 8-10 layers of cells.

AFTER 24 HOURS, without hygiene procedures, the cell layers reach 100.

AFTER 48 HOURS, there are more than 300 layers of cells, ... .

This immense bacterial population is held together by a scaffold called bacterial plaque (mucobacterial). It prevents saliva from reaching the surface of the tooth and carrying out its regulatory function: washing away the excess number of bacteria and diluting the acids they produce. As acidity increases, only the acid-resistant microorganisms of which they are also strong producers remain, thus creating a progressive lowering of the pH. Below the critical value of PH 5.5, corrosion of the enamel begins: CARIES! " (Ministry of Health. www.salute.gov.it)

 Thank you for your kind attention.