Why gum disease turns lethal (warning)

Imagine having a heart attack, but your body struggles to repair the damage because of bad breath, putting you at great risk of a second heart attack… this time lethal.

Sounds strange that your gums can cause this, doesn’t it?

But this is exactly what happens if you have gum disease. That’s according to a new study published in the International Journal of Oral Science.

Porphyromonas gingivalis (P.g.) is known for causing gum disease, but this study found that it can interfere with the heart muscle’s ability to repair itself after a heart attack by disrupting a critical cellular process called autophagy.

Autophagy is a kind of cellular “cleanup” mechanism that removes damaged components, allowing cells to function properly and recover from injury.

When this process is hindered, it can lead to increased heart tissue damage and a higher risk of heart rupture following a heart attack.

To prove this, the researchers did two studies.

In the first, they obtained heart muscle cells from newborn rats. Cardiomyocytes are the cells responsible for the contractile function of the heart, allowing it to pump blood throughout the body.

In the second, they used mice that had had heart attacks.

Through these trials, they noticed that P.g. was definitely responsible for inhibiting the repair of heart muscle cells.

1. P.g. infection increased heart cell size by 20% compared to non-infected cells.

2. Mice with P.g. infection had 30% lower survival rates after a simulated heart attack than those without the infection had.

But then the researchers went further. In previous studies, other scientists had found that the most harmful enzyme released by P.g. was something called gingipains.

To check this conclusion, the authors of this study modified P.g. genetically so they could no longer produce gingipains. And, promptly, the P.g. was no longer a heart health risk.

This doesn’t help us, of course, since normal P.g. does release gingipains.

The only thing that will help us is to get rid of P.g. and gum disease permanently. And that’s exactly what thousands of readers have done using the simple baby steps explained here…