Study Finds Association Between Good Oral Hygiene, Reduced Risk Of Some Cancers

Daily tooth brushing and regular dental visits “may reduce the risk of some head and neck cancers by a small margin,” according to a study published in the Annals of Oncology. The researchers examined “data from 13 studies including a total of almost 9,000 mouth, pharynx or similar tumor patients and more than 12,000 comparison subjects without cancer,” finding “people with fewer than five missing teeth, annual dentist visits, daily tooth brushing and no gum disease had lower odds than others of having head and neck cancer.” Lead author Dr. Dana Hashim of the department of preventive medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, said, “I would argue that it is appropriate to say that this is a causal relationship because this study uses incident – that is, newly diagnosed cases of cancer, after oral hygiene indicator data was collected.”