An article in the Daily Mail (Brushing your teeth could reduce your risk of dementia) caught my eye this week and gave me great entertainment as I was incredulous that American researchers could get the blindingly obvious so wrong!
Basically, they had taken volunteers over the age of 60 and tested the health of their gums and teeth. They then got the volunteers to do some simple memory tests - low and behold,
"The men and women with the highest levels of gum disease bugs were three times as likely to have trouble recalling a three-word sequence as those with the lowest amounts"
The brilliant thing is, this was reported as a gum disease being a possible contributor to dementia....
"It is unclear how dental health may fuel memory problems and dementia. But the bugs that lurk in our gums are known to damage arteries - and arterial damage has been linked to dementia."
Did no-one consider that actually, the link is likely to be the other way around - ie rather than bad teeth causing dementia, it is people with dementia forgetting to clean their teeth?
Thankfully, the very last sentence of the article gave way to sense with the comment...
"But British experts said that while the U.S. study was interesting it did not prove that poor dental health caused memory problems. Instead, it may be that people brush their teeth less as their memory starts to fail".
Incredible!!!
Recent Comments