Arthritis is considered incurable by the traditional medical system.
And this makes a new study that happened in the University of Louisville and presented at the American Association of Anatomists annual meeting a big deal.
This is as it revealed a two minutes daily habit that prevents, and could even reverse arthritis.
In past studies, researchers have highlighted the fact that people with chronic gum disease are more than twice as likely as the general population to develop rheumatoid arthritis.
These studies made scientists think that the bacteria responsible for gum disease, called porphyromonas gingivalis, might actually be the cause of other inflammatory diseases, rather than just co-occurring with them.
They put together their new research and from that, authored a paper in the Journal PLOS Pathogens in 2013, offering a hypothesis of how this works.
In studies on mice, they found that porphyromonas gingivalis produced an enzyme called peptidylarginine deiminanse (or PAD), which is not found anywhere else in the body.
The problem with PAD is that it converts certain proteins into citrulline proteins, and our immune systems really hate citrulline proteins!
Our immune systems treat them as harmful foreign objects that need to be destroyed. If citrulline proteins occur in our gums, our immune systems attack our gums. If they appear in our joints, our immune systems attack our joints.
Consequently, this is how gum disease causes rheumatoid arthritis.
The porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria settle all over your body, including your joints. From here, they set in motion a chain reaction that prompts your immune system to attack your joints with chronic inflammation that can destroy your joint cartilage.
This obviously means that you should flush and brush your teeth regularly to dislodge these bacteria that can cause so much mayhem.