Are you ready to quit? No Smoking Day – 11th March 2015

The damage that smoking can cause to our heart and lungs is well known. However, many people do not realise that smoking also causes significant damage to the mouth.

People who smoke are more likely to have gum disease. Smoking can change the type of bacteria in dental plaque, increasing the number of the more harmful bacteria.  Smoking also reduces the blood flow in the gums and supporting tissues of the tooth, and makes them more likely to become inflamed. But, because of the reduced blood flow, smokers may not get the warning symptoms of bleeding gums, giving a false impression that the gums are healthy.

Not only does smoking increase the chance that you will develop gum disease, it makes treatment much more difficult, because smoking hinders healing in your mouth.

Unfortunately it is not only our gums which suffer. Smoking damages the salivary glands, reducing the flow of saliva, which causes the mouth to become very dry. Saliva is the body’s natural defence against tooth decay, so people who suffer from dry mouths, find that their level of tooth decay increases.

There are thousands of chemicals contained in a single cigarette, and their point of entry is the mouth.  Smoking helps to transform saliva into a deadly cocktail that damages cells in the mouth and can turn them cancerous.

The danger is that smokers are three times more likely than non-smokers to develop mouth cancer, and seven times more likely to be diagnosed with throat cancer, while a morning cigarette has been shown to double those chances further.  But it is never too late to make a difference…. Research has shown that ex-smokers reduce their risk of mouth cancer by more than a third.

At Priory Dental Care we want to help our patients improve their oral health.  The annual ‘No Smoking Day’ campaign, run by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), encourages hundreds of thousands of smokers to make a quit attempt on No Smoking Day. To receive information and support on stopping smoking visit www.nosmokingday.org.uk or join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #NoSmokingDay.  Alternatively, if you would like to talk about giving up smoking with one of our dentists or hygienist, please mention this at your next visit and they will be happy to help you.