Proper oral health care is important for a variety of obvious reasons, but one of the most important is chewing. Chewing is more than a process that breaks your food into smaller pieces; it is the way to ensure that your food is properly digested and that your body reacts properly to the food that you eat.
How Your Teeth Play a Role
Your teeth play an obvious role in chewing. If your teeth are in poor health, it could become more difficult or even painful to chew your food properly. When this begins to occur, you might unconsciously chew your food less. This could lead to a decreased sense of taste in your mouth as you hurriedly digest food. Chewing properly also promotes the production of saliva, which helps to decrease the risk of tooth decay by washing bacteria out of your mouth. In addition, food that is not properly chewed can cause digestive upset, including bloating, acid indigestion and even bowel issues. There are a variety of conditions that might cause you to chew your food less, even if you have all of your teeth in your mouth:
– Tooth decay
– Gum disease
– Tooth abscess
– Loose or ill-fitting teeth
Get Regular Checkups
One of the best ways to ensure that you have the ability to properly chew your food is to keep your regular dental appointments. Even when you think that everything is going just fine, you might have minor tooth decay or the beginning signs of gum disease. When you keep up your regular dental appointments with our office, you have the ability to know what is going on with your oral health at all times. Typically, the earlier that any oral health issue is found the less invasive the treatment needs to be.
Your ultimate goal in your oral health should be to keep all of your own teeth because your natural teeth will provide the easiest and most effective ways to chew your food. By keeping up your oral health at home by brushing and flossing twice per day and coming to our office for regular checkups, you can help to keep your oral health in check and make chewing an easy task to accomplish.
